Rukavat ke liye khed hai!

Sorry for the interruption in the interview series, but there's something that's been bothering me over the past few days: the Prime Minister's ill health. Well, not his ill health per se, but the consequences of it. As you all know, the Prime Minister underwent a 12 hour redo-bypass surgery earlier this month. In his absence, his duties were divided between Vice-President Hamid Ansari and external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee. And this was because there is neither a provision in the Constitution nor any agreed convention as to who should officiate in the Prime Minister's position should he become incapcitated. Mind you, I do not use the word death because once the Prime Minister dies, the cabinet ceases to exist. In this particular case, the Prime Minister has been deemed unfit to perform his official duties for a few days. Now, the question arises as to who should officiate on behalf of the Prime Minister if such a situation takes place in future.

I was watching an interesting debate on CNBC-TV18 on Sunday night anchored by Karan Thapar where analyst K Subhramanyam, Business Standard editor-in-chief T N Ninan and former deputy national security advisor Satish Chandra analysed the issue in detail. They also discussed a few plausible solutions to this problem such as having a Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) or nominating the seniormost cabinet minister to officiate in the Prime Minister's absence. I beg to differ with both issues on a few counts. Let's take the first one. The post of Deputy Prime Minister is not a constitutional post and whether or not to have a DPM is the Prime Minister's prerogative. If we look at past DPM's, barring L K Advani, most of them were given the position due to compulsions of coalition politics (or other political compulsions). Also, a DPM, in certain cases, may not be competent enough or may not have the requisite political experience to officiate as Prime Minister. He/she may have been given the post to satisy the demand of an ally or to balance other political equations. Lastly, in an era of coalition politics, there may be some political allies of the government who may not be comfortable with the DPM taking over as PM even if it is temporary arrangement. Sample this; if the NDA were in power with Advani as DPM and Mr Vajpayee were to undergo a similar surgery, I doubt that many NDA allies would favour Mr Advani to take over. Hence, this doesn't prove to be a feasible solution.
Now, the second solution offered is that the seniormost cabinet minister officiates in the PM's abesence. Till date, all the seniormost cabinet ministers of governments which have lasted their full term - Jagjivan Ram, Narasimha Rao, Pranab Mukherjee, L K Advani - have belonged to the same political party which the Prime Minister also belongs to. However, what if, in future, the seniormost cabinet member belongs to party which the Prime Minister doesn't belong to? And, in an era of coalition politics. such a possiblity cannot be ruled out. Also, in such a scenario, the seniormost cabinet member's party may not have the appropriate representation in Parliament. Moreover, the office he/she holds - Home, Defence, External Affairs, Finance - may be due to the compulsions of coalition politics. Most importantly, the allies may start squabbling amongst themselves, thereby making it difficult for this person to function. Hence, would it be fair to have the seniormost cabinet minister in the Prime Minister's seat? I guess not.

So what, then, are the solutions to such a peculiar problem? One of them could be that the Chief Justice of India (CJI) officiates in the Prime Minister's absence. And I say this after giving the solution a lot of thought. Firstly, nobody can dispute the importance of the post he/she holds. Secondly, the CJI fulfills the requisite criteria of being knowledgable about the law of the land and, most importantly, he would be the appropriate neutral authority who would command the respect of all allies of the government. Moreover, the Prime Minister is also the chairperson of the Nuclear Command Authority (NCA) which means he/she can give the go-ahead in the event of a nuclear war. In this context, the NCA would require a person who has the requisite knowledge and authority to head such a body, should a nuclear war break out. Therefore, it is on these counts that the Chief Justice of India should officiate in the Prime Minister's absence, should he be incapacitated.

Again, the above solution is not the only solution. There maybe legal hurdles in the CJI taking over and other better solutions which will benefit the country. The idea behind this post is to suggest a person of considerable stature and authority who can officiate in the absence of the PM. Readers are most welcome to post alternative suggestions as well.

For now, it's back to the interview series.