An Analysis of Article 356 in Coalition Era of Indian Politics
| Published date | 01 June 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00195561231221822 |
| Author | Subhasmita Khuntia,Ravuru Narasaiah |
| Date | 01 June 2024 |
An Analysis of
Article 356 in Coalition
Era of Indian Politics
Subhasmita Khuntia1 and Ravuru Narasaiah2
Abstract
Article 356 of the Indian Constitution has often been subjected to the partisan
use by the successive Central governments since 1950. However, the shift from
a single-party majority government to a multi-party coalition governments in
national politics since early 1990s has largely influenced the scope and intent
of invoking this Article. The coalition government’s survival with the backing
of regional parties has indeed been a major factor in diminishing the incentives
for the arbitrary and frequent invocation of Article 356. In this backdrop, the
present article explains how the political change brought about by the coali-
tion governments since 1990s has created the conditions for restraining Central
transgressions on state governance, and also discusses the prospects of rationally
employing this Article in the changing political conditions of the country. The
argument of this paper is that—although the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party to
national political dominance since the 2014 general elections has raised appre-
hension about the move towards centralised federalism, it is not likely to upset
the current pattern of restrained use of this Article.
Keywords
Article 356, single party majority government, coalition government, Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP), centralised federalism
Introduction
The provision of emergency in a state under Article 356 of the Indian Constitution
has been one of the most debatable issues in the political arena. This Article,
inheriting the legacy of colonial rule,1 has vested the Union government with the
extraordinary power to take over the government of a State by imposing the
Article
Indian Journal of Public
Administration
70(2) 285–298, 2024
© 2024 IIPA
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/00195561231221822
journals.sagepub.com/home/ipa
1 Department of Political Science, Rama Devi Women’s University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India
2 Department of Political Science, Sri Venkateswara College (University of Delhi), New Delhi, India
Corresponding author:
Department of Political Science, Rama Devi Women’s University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha 751022,
India.
E-mail: subhasmitakhuntia8@gmail.com
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