Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Caretaker Government

When a person takes oath as a Prime Minister or Chief Minister without having full majority, then the President/Governor asks him/her to prove the majority in a stipulated time. Till then, the Prime Minister/Chief Minister would be a caretaker PM/CM.

Similarly, after the dissolution of the house or after the resignation of the PM/CM, till the next PM/CM takes oath, the incumbent PM/CM would be a caretaker PM/CM.

A caretaker PM/CM has most of the powers of PM/CM except that, the caretaker PM/CM cannot introduce any bills, ordinances, new schemes or make major changes. For day to day operations, there is no difference between caretaker PM/CM and normal PM/CM.

In 1999, Vajpayee has faced one full fledged war, when he was a caretaker PM and his ministry was a caretaker Ministry. Without having full executive power, PM cannot face a full fledged war.

The present election commission is behaving like a dictator by denying the normal rights a CM has. The CM has all the executive powers till the next CM takes oath. [It is not just enough that, counting is finished or the new CM has been elected. The new CM has to take oath.]

If the election commission thinks that, a CM cannot even have meetings with the officials, then they should change the constitution that, as soon as the election notification issued, all the CMs and the PM would lose their post, and the State Election Commission Officers would become CMs and the Chief Election Commission Officer would become PM. Till then, the existing caretaker PM/CM will have all the executive rights.

I don't know whether I should blame the current Election Commission Officer or the potential second dictator of Independent India. 

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