Today's Edit: Harish Rawat's moment

To keep momentum, governance is necessary

The curtains may have come down, at least for now, on the Uttarakhand political imbroglio, with the Harish Rawat-led Congress group winning the vote of confidence in a Supreme Court-monitored proceeding in the State Assembly. But uncertainties still remain. Will Rawat decide to complete his tenure of a few more months or will he, flush with victory, recommend the dissolution of the House and seek a fresh mandateIJ Despite the win, he is far from fully secure. He has lost nine legislators from his ranks and has won only with the slightest margin — by one vote more than the minimum required. His credibility and ability to carry with him the rank and file of Congressmen in the State remains severely eroded.

Further, he is abysmally dependent on outside support for survival for the remaining term. All of these mean that he will remain hobbled in his functioning and will be constantly looking over his shoulder at trouble. Governance could be a casualty. It is, therefore, possible that he may call for an early election in the hope that the people will identify with his new-found image of having secured a hard-fought victory ‘for democracy’. On the other hand, it is equally possible that he may seek to use the rest of the months before the election is scheduled, to consolidate his and his party’s hold over the masses so that he can approach the voters from a position of strength.

But that’s a risk, and Rawat may settle for the ‘a bird in hand is worth two in a bush’ wisdom. In any case, he will be wrong if he really believes that the vote of confidence he has gained is an endorsement of his popularity. Even today, within his party, there is simmering discontent which remains capped for various reasons. Moreover, the two Bahujan Samaj Party MlAs voted in his favour (and saved him for certain defeat) because BSP supremo Mayawati did not want to be seen as being on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s side ahead of the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, where she is seeking to lure the sizeable minority community away from the ruling Samajwadi Party. Still, all said, the fact cannot be denied that Harish Rawat and his team successfully managed the crisis while the opposition failed to capitalise on the situation despite trying every trick in the trade to deny Rawat a triumphant return. He deserves to be complimented. The people of the State will benefit if he can use the opportunity to deliver governance.

While the political dust will settle down to an extent, now that the trust vote is done with, the legal battle continues to be fought. Everything that the courts have done so far, has been largely interim in nature. Final verdicts on the validity of the imposition of President’s Rule and the disqualification of nine rebel legislators from the Assembly’s membership (which allowed the Rawat regime to sail through on Tuesday) have still to come out. Of course, it may be so that by the time these legalities are settled, political developments in Uttarakhand will have moved on and the court orders will have only an academic value. However, there is the tantalising possibility of the disqualification matter being decided as early as this July or even before — and if that happens in the disqualified legislators’ favour, it could trigger a fresh round of political developments.