The old adage – every cloud has a silver lining – has been proved yet again by the events of the last few days in Karnataka. The atmosphere in the State in the run up to the Assembly election was severely vitiated by the bitter campaign and mud-slinging by all the protagonists. The electorate’s fractured mandate made it virtually impossible to form a stable government. This was followed by other unsavoury developments such as holding MlAs of the Congress and JD(S) virtual captives in a resort and their subsequent en masse relocation to Hyderabad, ostensibly to prevent poaching.
Irrespective of the outcome of Saturday’s Trust vote ordered by the Supreme Court, the SC’s decision to lay down fresh directives on how Governors should conduct themselves if faced with a hung legislature after an election, is a most welcome step. Presumably a Constitution Bench will delve into this and pronounce clear guidelines. That may well circumscribe the extent of “discretion” on the part of Governors who often act in a partisan manner.
The less discretion is allowed to be exercised by Governors the better it will be. The subversion of democratic principles will hopefully be curtailed once new criteria are unambiguously delineated. Indian democracy has evolved through such corrective doses of medication whenever a malaise has struck. And Karnataka offers one more such opportunity for rectification.