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There is hardly any moral high ground left in Maharashtra's political arena. But the question raised by the events of Friday night-Saturday morning is this: Is the constitutional ground also slipping rapidly That question is, now, before the Supreme Court. On Sunday, the Court gave a notice to the respondents, after the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress knocked on its door, and directed that two letters be produced before it on Monday morning the letter of support presented by Devendra Fadnavis in support of his claim and the Governor's letter inviting him to form the government. Those two letters feature in the bizarre sequence of events that led to the swearing in of Fadnavis as Chief Minister of Maharashtra in the early morning hours on Saturday, after President Ram Nath Kovind revoked President's Rule at 5.47 am, in the wake of the Narendra Modi government invoking a special provision of The Government of India Rules which gives the Prime Minister special powers to permit a departure from rules to circumvent the need for a meeting of the Union cabinet. The court will be watched for the urgency with which it orders a floor test, the only way in which the legitimacy of a government can be tested, a principle established by its own Bommai ruling. The court, it is hoped, will not only show the way forward, but also restore a semblance of constitutional propriety, offer a restatement of constitutional presence, after a night in which the darkness drew into its fold high constitutional offices like that of president, prime minister and governor.
In Maharashtra, the political tug and pull has now been overtaken by serious questions of adherence to, rather betrayal of, constitutionalism, in letter and in spirit. But let there be no doubt that when it comes to playing with the mandate, all parties are in the dock, no side conducted itself honourably. After the break-up of the long-standing Shiv Sena-BJP pre-poll alliance, which won a majority of the votes, the jarring unlikeliness of the Congress-Sena partnership has been followed by the swearing-in of Ajit Pawar as Fadnavis's deputy. The Congress has for long decades fought the Sena and its brand of politics in Maharashtra and used that stated antagonism to bolster its own "secular" credentials. Fadnavis and the BJP have loudly and insistently targeted Ajit Pawar, for the alleged irrigation scam and the multi-crore scam in the Maharashtra State Cooperative Board-the high court is scheduled to hear the irrigation case this week.
But the question before the court goes beyond the tawdriness in the air, the secretive parleys between parties, the meetings of MLAs holed up in three Mumbai hotels, the twists and turns in the Pawar family drama, playing out in real time on Twitter. Can a government be sworn in while a nation sleeps, can it be a result of pre-dawn moves and stealth in the night The court must bear in mind that whatever it says will be read closely by a nation looking for answers.