The Indian Panorama

Tag: Jagdeep Dhankhar

  • RS Chairman suppressing Opposition’s freedom of speech, says Kharge

    There has been no let-up in the Opposition’s attack against Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar who found himself at the receiving end of a fresh salvo fired by the Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge who accused the Chairman of “sycophancy”.

    In the Rajya Sabha, Dhankhar briefly turned emotional and told Congress chief whip Jairam Ramesh, “You people forget relationships very soon, you do not remember relationships. You must appreciate the importance of relationships. Relationship should not be allowed to get vitiated, it should be taken care of and nurtured. If you want to hurt someone, aim for the person’s head, not heart,” Dhankhar said. Though Dhankhar did not make any mention about the no-trust notice given against him by the Opposition, it was obvious that he was referring to the Opposition charge against him of being partisan and seeking his removal from the post of Vice-President.

  • Cash found from Parliament seat allotted to Abhishek Manu Singhvi, probe ordered

    New Delhi (TIP)- Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar on Friday, December 6, informed the House that during a routine anti-sabotage check, a wad of currency notes was discovered from seat number 222, allotted to Congress MP and senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi. The matter has been handed over for investigation, he said. Responding to the statement, Abhishek Manu Singhvi denied any involvement, terming the situation “bizarre”.
    “I here by inform the members that during the routine anti-sabotage check of the chamber after the adjournment of the House yesterday. Apparently, a wad of currency notes was recovered by the security officials from seat number 222 which is presently allotted to Abhishek Manu Singhvi, elected from the state of Telangana. The matter was brought to my notice, and I made sure an investigation takes place and the same is underway,” Jagdeep Dhankhar said.
    Speaking to reporters, Abhishek Manu Singhvi detailed his brief presence in Parliament on Thursday. “I am quite astonished to even hear about it. I never heard of it. I reached the inside of the House yesterday at 12.57pm. The House rose at 1pm. From 1 to 1:30pm, I sat with Ayodhya Prasad in the canteen and had lunch. At 1:30 pm, I left Parliament. So my total stay in the House yesterday was 3 minutes, and my stay in the canteen was 30 minutes,” the Congress MP said.
    “I find it bizarre that politics is raised even on such issues. Of course, there must be an inquiry as to how people can come and put anything anywhere in any seat. It means that each of us must have a seat where the seat itself can be locked and the key can be carried home by the MP because everybody can then do things on the seat and make allegations about this. If it was not tragic and serious it would be comical. I think everybody should cooperate in getting to the bottom of this, and if there is a failing in the security agencies that must also be completely exposed,” Abhishek Singhvi added.
    Here’s what we know so far: Jagdeep Dhankhar’s statement triggered an uproar from the Opposition benches, with Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge saying the Chairman should not have named the member without the investigation being completed.
    The Chairman said the wad is of ?500 currency notes, and appears to have 100 notes.
    Jagdeep Dhankhar also said it was not clear if the currency notes were real or fake.
    “It was my duty and I’m obliged to inform the House. This is a routine anti-sabotage check which takes place,” he said.
    Dhankhar added that he was expecting someone would claim the currency notes, but no one has claimed it so far “Does it reflect the state of the economy that people can afford to forget it,” he said. Uproar was witnessed from both treasury and opposition benches over the issue.
    “Why should there be an objection to the name being taken? The Chairman has pointed out seat number and member who occupies that, what is the problem with that,” Parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju said. He said carrying bundles of notes in the House is not appropriate, adding that he agrees there should be a serious investigation.

  • Admonishments that endanger the Constitution

    Admonishments that endanger the Constitution

    To suggest that the basic structure doctrine is by itself unsanctioned is to place the Constitution at the legislature’s whim

     “Since its judgment in Kesavananda, the Supreme Court has identified several features that are immutable. There is no doubt that on occasion, the Court’s interpretation of these features has suffered from incoherence. But to suggest that the basic structure doctrine is by itself unsanctioned is to place the Constitution at the legislature’s whim. When taken to its extreme, accepting the Vice-President’s claims would mean that, in theory, Parliament can abrogate its own powers and appoint a person of its choice as the country’s dictator. Consider the consequences.” 

    By Suhrith Parthasarathy

    Come April and it will be 50 years since the Supreme Court of India delivered its verdict in Kesavananda Bharati vs State of Kerala. The judgment is widely recognized as a milestone in India’s history. In holding that Parliament’s power to amend the Constitution was not plenary, that any change that damages the document’s basic structure would be declared void, the Court, it was understood, had helped preserve the essence of our republic.

    In the years since the verdict – if not in its immediate aftermath – its importance has been recognized by successive governments. During this time, most criticism of the doctrine has been confined to the manner of its application rather than its legitimacy. But last week, India’s Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar launched a salvo of attacks at the Supreme Court, by calling into question the ruling’s correctness. Faced as we are with far greater issues of civic concern, this debate might well be regarded as tedious, if only the arguments made against the judgment were not part of what appears to be a concerted effort at undermining the judiciary’s importance.

    Collegium as target

    Over the course of the last few months, not a day has gone by without one member or the other of the political executive excoriating the Court over its apparent excesses. Much of this criticism has been aimed at the functioning of the collegium — a body of senior judges that makes binding recommendations on appointments and the transfer of judges. The Union Minister of Law and Justice, Kiren Rijiju, and indeed Mr. Dhankhar, have repeatedly doubted the Court’s judgment in 2015, in which it struck down efforts to replace the collegium with a National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC). That criticism has now turned sharper, with the Vice-President’s diatribe against Kesavananda.

    In his maiden address to the Rajya Sabha in December 2022, Mr. Dhankhar claimed that the striking down of the NJAC had no parallels in democratic history. A “duly legitimized constitutional prescription,” he claimed, “has been judicially undone.” Speaking on January 11 at the 83rd All India Presiding Officers (Assembly Speakers) Conference in Jaipur, Rajasthan, he said that “in a democratic society, the basic of any basic structure is supremacy of people, sovereignty of parliament…The ultimate power is with the legislature. Legislature also decides who will be there in other institutions. In such a situation, all institutions must confine to their domains. One must not make incursion in the domain of others.”

    Mr. Dhankar then heightened his criticism by doubting the legitimacy of the basic structure doctrine. The correctness of the Court’s view, he said, “must be deliberated…Can Parliament allow that its verdict will be subject to any other authority? In my maiden address after I assumed the office of Chairman of Rajya Sabha, I said this. I am not in doubt about it. This cannot happen.”

    To be sure, genuine criticism of both the Collegium’s functioning and the Court’s judgment upholding the body’s legality ought to be welcomed. But seeing as the Government, as Mr. Rijiju confirmed in Parliament last month, has no plans to implement any systemic change in the way we appoint judges, and given that the Government itself has done little to promote transparency in the process, the present reproach is, at its best, unprincipled, and, at its worst, an attempt at subverting the judiciary’s autonomy. That it is likely the latter is clear from the fact that the Vice-President has now carried his denunciation to a point where his admonishments are reserved not just for the collegium but also for the ruling in Kesavananda.

    The foundation of the Constitution

    Were we to begin with the elementary premise that India’s Constitution, as originally adopted, comprises a set of principles that together lend it an identity, we will see that the raison d’etre for the basic structure doctrine is not difficult to grasp. On any reasonable reading of constitutional history, one can see that the Constitution is a product of a collective vision. That vision was built on distinct, if interwoven, ideals: among others, that India would be governed by the rule of law, that our structure of governance would rest on Westminster parliamentarianism, that the powers of the legislature, the executive and the judiciary would be separate, that the courts would be independent of government, and that our States would have absolute power over defined spheres of governance.

    Now, ask yourself the following questions: what happens when an amendment made to the Constitution harms one or more of these principles in a manner that alters the Constitution’s identity? Would the Constitution remain the same Constitution that was adopted in 1950? Should Parliament amend the Constitution to replace the Westminster system with a presidential style of governance, would the Constitution’s character be preserved? Or consider something rather more radical: can Parliament, through amendment, efface the right to life guaranteed in Article 21? Would this not result in the creation of a document of governance that is no longer “the Constitution of India?”

    It is by pondering over questions of this nature that the majority in Kesavananda found that there was much that was correct in the German professor Dietrich Conrad’s address in February 1965 at the Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. There, Conrad had pointed out, that “any amending body organized within the statutory scheme, howsoever verbally unlimited its power, cannot by its very structure change the fundamental pillars supporting its constitutional authority”.

    On ‘amendments’

    As the Court would later explained in Minerva Mills vs Union of India (1980) — and incidentally at stake there was the very survival of the idea that fundamental rights are inviolable — “Parliament too is a creature of the Constitution”. Therefore, it can only have such powers that are expressly vested on it. If those powers are seen as unlimited, Parliament, the Court found, “would cease to be an authority under the Constitution”; it would instead “become supreme over it, because it would have power to alter the entire Constitution including its basic structure”. In other words, the principle that Parliament is proscribed from changing the Constitution’s essential features is rooted in the knowledge that the Constitution, as originally adopted, was built on an intelligible moral foundation.

    On this construction, it is possible to see the basic structure doctrine as implicit on a reading of the Constitution as a whole. But it is also deductible, as Justice H.R. Khanna wrote in his controlling opinion in Kesavananda, through an interpretation of the word “amendment”. The dictionary defines “amendment” to mean a “minor change or addition designed to improve a text”. As Justice Khanna saw it, when the Constitution that emerges out of a process of amendment as stipulated in Article 368 is not merely the Constitution in an altered form but a Constitution that is devoid of its basic structure, the procedure undertaken ceases to be a mere amendment.

    Since its judgment in Kesavananda, the Supreme Court has identified several features that are immutable. There is no doubt that on occasion, the Court’s interpretation of these features has suffered from incoherence. But to suggest that the basic structure doctrine is by itself unsanctioned is to place the Constitution at the legislature’s whim. When taken to its extreme, accepting the Vice-President’s claims would mean that, in theory, Parliament can abrogate its own powers and appoint a person of its choice as the country’s dictator. Consider the consequences.

    (Suhrith Parthasarathy is an advocate practising in the Madras High Court)

  • Dhankhar’s journey from a Rajasthan village to Vice President House

    Dhankhar’s journey from a Rajasthan village to Vice President House

    Jagdeep Dhankhar, 71, was declared elected as the Vice President on Saturday, August 6, after he bagged 528 votes against his rival candidate Margaret Alva’s 182. Dhankhar was born on May 18 May 1951 in Kithana village in Jhunjhunu District, Rajasthan. Dhankhar did his primary schooling in his village Kithana. He later joined the Sainik School, Chittorgarh, on a full scholarship. After graduating from Sainik School, he joined the Maharaja’s College, Jaipur in the B.Sc (Honours) Physics course, according to his biography on West Bengal Raj Bhavan.
    It adds that Dhankhar then took admission to the LLB course at the University of Rajasthan. He graduated in the year 1978-79 and was enrolled as an advocate in the bar in the same year.
    Dhankhar was designated as Senior Advocate by the High Court of Judicature for Rajasthan on March 27, 1990, and he was the senior-most designated Senior Advocate of Rajasthan till his appointment as Governor on 2019,according to the Raj Bhawan. Dhankhar forayed into politics in 1989 and was elected to the Lok Sabha from Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan that same year and became a Union minister in 1990. Dhankhar was also a member of the Rajasthan Vidhan Sabha during 1993-98 representing Kishangarh constituency.
    The ‘first-generation professional’

    BJP chief JP Nadda hailed Jagdeep Dhankhar as a “first generation professional”. As a lawyer, Dhankhar practised primarily in the Supreme Court and his focus area of litigation has been steel, coal, mine and international commercial arbitration, amongst others, according to Raj Bhawan. He has appeared in various High Courts in the country. Dhankhar was also elected President of the Rajasthan High Court Bar Association,Jaipur at the youngest age of 36 in the 1987. Dhankhar was elected a Member of the Rajasthan Bar Council in 1988.
    Dhankhar’s tussle with Mamata Banerjee

    Ever since his appointment as West Bengal Governor, Jagdeep Dhankhar and Mamata Banerjee have gone after each other. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) leadership has often accused Dhankhar of acting as an ‘agent of the BJP’,while the Bengal BJP looked upon him as an ‘upholder of constitutional norms’. On his part, Dhankhar has claimed he has gone by the rule book and the Constitution in pointing out issues to Banerjee’s government and the state

    legislature.
    Acrimony between Dhankhar and TMC and Banerjee often led to messy situations with both levelling accusations at each other. The issues which had Dhankhar and Banerjee sniping at each other ranged from post-poll violence in the state to delays in assent to bills passed in the House, besides interference in the functioning of the civilian bureaucracy and state-run universities.
    Interestingly, Banerjee had met Dhankhar on Wednesday along with BJP’s pointsman for Northeast, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, at Darjeeling. No details of the meeting were made public by either side and it was termed as a courtesy call.
    Banerjee has written several complaints regarding Dhankhar, according to India Today. It reports, “The primary reasons of complaint stated in the letters were the difficulties of governance faced by the state government created by the Governor in the procedures of file movements, clearance of files, calling the chief secretary and other state level senior officials on nominal issues and thereby challenging the authority of the CM on various matters.”
    Jagdeep Dhankhar’s political journey

    BJP chief JP Nadda called Jagdeep Dhankhar ‘kisan putra’ [farmer’s son]. Dhankhar also belongs to the Jat community, which is a politically influential caste in several areas in North Indian states including Rajasthan. Notably, the BJP has faced ire both from the farmers and Jats -many of whom are land-holding farmers in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Haryana- in recent years, which was visible during the year-long farmers’ protests. Analysts told PTI that NDA’s Dhankhar has a lot more going than just being someone always at odds with Banerjee. Dhankhar has in the past claimed to be a ‘reluctant politician’. Along with other leaders, Dhankhar was involved with the grant of OBC status to Other Backward Classes,including the Jat community in Rajasthan.Like most Jat politicians from his time, Dhankhar was originally associated with Devi Lal and he followed his mentor when the latter walked out of the VP Singh government and became a union minister in 1990. Dhankhar joined the Congress when PV Narsimha Rao became the prime minister and Devi Lal was no more than effective. But with the rise of Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan politics, he shifted to the BJP and is said to have become close to Vasundhara Raje soon after.

    VICE PRESIDENTS OF INDIA

    The Vice President of India is the deputy to the President of India and this office ranks second in order of precedence and first in line of succession to the presidency.The Vice President is also a member of Parliament of India as the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. When a bill is introduced in the Rajya Sabha it is the Vice President who decides whether it is a money bill or not. The Vice President is elected indirectly by members of an electoral college comprising members of both Houses of Parliament and not the members of the state legislative assemblies. The election is done by the system of proportional representation using single transferable votes and the voting is conducted by the Election Commission of India using a secret ballot. Sarvepalli Radhakrishna was the first Vice President of India and served from May 13 1952 to 12 May 1962 before he took over as President. India has had 13 Vice Presidents and currently the post is held by Venkaiah Naidu.

  • Jagdeep Dhankhar elected India’s next Vice President

    Jagdeep Dhankhar elected India’s next Vice President

    55 MPs did not vote in the vice-presidential election

    NEW DELHI (TIP): NDA candidate Jagdeep Dhankhar on Saturday, August 6,  won the Vice-Presidential election by bagging more than 500 votes, while opposition candidate Margaret Alva polled less than 200 votes, sources said.

    After counting of 725 votes that were polled, as many as 15 were found to be invalid.As many as 55 MPs did not vote in the vice-presidential election held from 10 am to 5 pm on Saturday. The Trinamool Congress, which has a total of 36 MPs, including 23 in Lok Sabha, had abstained from the election. However, two of its MPs had cast their ballots.

  • Journey of Bengal’s daughter to nation’s Didi

    Journey of Bengal’s daughter to nation’s Didi

    All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) supremo Mamata Banerjee, also known as Didi (elder sister in the Bengali language), sworn in as the Chief Minister of West Bengal for the third term on 5 May 2021 after she pulled off a landslide victory in the West Bengal Assembly Elections 2021. Ahead of the oath-taking ceremony, she resigned as the Chief Minister of West Bengal at Raj Bhavan in the presence of Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar (as per the practice) and took the oath of the office and secrecy again. She lost the Nandigram Assembly Constituency to Suvendu Adhikari (BJP) in 2021.

    After her separation from the Indian National Congress, she founded the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC or TMC) in 1998. She spearheaded the AITC alliance to a landslide victory in the  2011 West Bengal Assembly Elections, defeating the 34-year-old Communist Party of India (Marxist). She was a member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly from the Bhabanipur Assembly Constituency from 2011-2021.

    Apart from serving as the Chief Minister of West Bengal, she has held key positions in the Union Cabinet such as first female Minister of Railways, first female Minister of Coal, and Minister of Human Resource Development, Youth Affairs and Sports, Women and Child Development. She has served as the Minister of Railways on two occasions. Mamata Banerjee rose to prominence after opposing the erstwhile land acquisition policies for industrialisation of the Communist government in West Bengal for Special Economic Zones at the cost of agriculturalists and farmers at Singur.

    Throughout her political career, she has maintained a publicly austere lifestyle. She can be seen dressed in a traditional Bengali saree. Though many don’t know, she is a self-taught painter and a poet. Her 300 paintings were sold for Rs. 9 crores.

    Early life, and education

    Mamata Banerjee was born in Calcutta (present-day Kolkata), West Bengal to a Bengali Hindu family to Promileswar Banerjee and Gayetri Devi. She lost her father at the age of 17 due to a lack of medical treatment.

    She attended Deshbandhu Sishu Sikhshalay and completed her senior secondary studies in 1970. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in History from Jogamaya Devi College and received her Master’s degree in Islamic history from the University of Calcutta. She further earned a degree in Education from Shri Shikshayatan College and a law degree from Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri Law College, Kolkata. She received an honorary doctorate from the  Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Bhubaneswar and an honorary Doctorate of Literature (D.Litt.) from Calcutta University.

    At the age of 15, she became involved in politics and established Chhatra Parishad Union, the student wing of the Congress (I) Party, defeating the All India Democratic Students Organisation affiliated with the Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist).

    Political career

    She started her political career with the Indian National Congress in the 1970s. She earned huge attention from the media after dancing on the car of socialist activist and politician Jayaprakash Narayan as a protest against him. From 1976-1980, she served as the General Secretary of the Mahila Congress, West Bengal. In the 1984 General Election, she became one of the youngest parliamentarians of India, defeating veteran Communist Party politician Somnath Chatterjee, to win the Jadavpur Parliamentary Constituency in West Bengal.

    In 1984, she became the General Secretary of the Indian Youth Congress. In the 1989 General Elections, she lost her seat to  Malini Bhattacharya of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). In the 1991 General Elections, she was re-elected from Calcutta South constituency and retained this seat in 1996, 1998, 1999, 2004, and 2009 General Elections.

    During P. V. Narasimha Rao administration from 1991-1996, she held key positions in the Union Cabinet. She was appointed the Union Minister of State for Human Resources Development, Youth Affairs and Sports, and Women and Child Development.

    After indicating her resignation and protesting at a rally against the Government’s indifference towards her proposal to improve sports in the country at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata, West Bengal, she was discharged of her portfolios in the year 1993.

    In 1997, Mamata Banerjee parted ways with the Indian National Congress over the difference in political views with the then West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee President Somendra Nath Mitra. In 1998, she along with Mukul Roy founded AITC which quickly became the opposition party to the Communist Government in West Bengal.

    On 11 December 1998, she held a Samajwadi Party MP, Daroga Prasad Saroj, by the collar and dragged him out of the well of the Lok Sabha, preventing him from protesting against the Women Reservation Bill.

    In 1999, she joined BJP led NDA Government and served as the Minister of Railways. She presented her first Railway Budget in 2000 where she introduced 19 new trains for the FY 2000-2001 and fulfilled many of her promises to her home state West Bengal.

    In early 2001, after Tehelka Magazine’s exposure of Operation West End, she walked out of the NDA and allied with the Indian National Congress for the 2001 West Bengal elections and also to register her protest against senior ministers of the government over the corruption charges levelled by Tehelka.

    In September 2003, she again allied with the NDA Government and served as a Cabinet Minister without any portfolio. On 9 January 2004, took charge as the Minister of Coal and Mines and held the portfolio till 22 May 2004.

    In the 2004 General Elections, her party aligned with the BJP but lost the elections. She suffered major setbacks when the sitting mayor Subrata Mukherjee defected from her party. Her party was defeated in the 2006 West Bengal Assembly Elections. On 4 August 2006, she hurled her resignation papers at the Dy. Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal in Lok Sabha. Banerjee was provoked by Speaker Somnath Chatterjee who rejected her adjournment motion on illegal infiltration by Bangladeshis in West Bengal on the grounds of improper format.

    On 20 October 2005, she rose to prominence after opposing the erstwhile land acquisition policies for industrialisation of the  Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government in West Bengal for Special Economic Zones at the cost of agriculturalists and farmers at Singur.

    In November 2006, she was forcibly stopped on her way to Singur for a rally against the proposed Tata Motors car project. She reached the West Bengal assembly, protested, addressed a press conference, and announced a 12-hour shut down by her party. The MLAs of AITC vandalized the West Bengal Legislative Assembly building and a major strike was called on 14 December 2006, but no gain was registered.

    In 2007, armed police personnel stormed the rural area of Purba Medinipur district to quash protest against the then Government of West Bengal. The Government had plans to expropriate 10,000 acres (40 km2) of land for a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) to be developed by the Indonesian-based Salim Group. As per the reports, at least 14 villagers were shot dead while over 70 were wounded, leading to a large number of people protesting on the streets.

    Soon after this incident, Mamata Banerjee wrote letters to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Minister Shivraj Patil to stop the violence in Nandigram which she termed as ‘State-sponsored violence’ promoted by CPI(M).

    Before the 2009 General Elections, her party forged an alliance with the Congress-led  United Progressive Alliance (UPA). After the elections,  Banerjee became the Union Minister of Railways.

    Upon becoming the Union Minister of Railways for the second time, she introduced a number of non-stop Duronto Express trains connecting large cities as well as a number of other passenger trains, including women-only trains.

    As a Chief Minister

    She spearheaded the AITC alliance to a landslide victory in the 2011 West Bengal Assembly Elections, defeating the 34-year-old Communist Party of India (Marxist). She assumed the position of Chief Minister of West Bengal and has been serving the position for the third term in a row.

    She is the first and to date the only female Chief Minister of West Bengal. Soon after assuming the office, she returned the 400 acres of land to Singur farmers, set up Gorkhaland Territorial Administration and brought in many reforms in the education and health sectors.

    In a bid to improve the law and order situation in the state, she created police commissionerates at Howrah, Barrackpore, Durgapur-Asansol and Bidhannagar. The total area of Kolkata Municipal Corporation was brought under the control of the Kolkata Police.

    On 16 February 2012, she received an appreciation letter from  Bill Gates of the  Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for achieving a full year without any reported cases of polio, stating it as a milestone not only for India but for the world as well.

    In the 2016 West Bengal Assembly Elections, her party won 211 of 293 seats. She took oath as the CM of West Bengal for the second time.