What happens is this. The President has taken over authority to himself because either he has found a grave emergency in the State or some disturbance which the Ministry is not able to quell and therefore his intervention is necessary. If that Ministry was competent, he then restores it after the emergency; but if he feels that it is not competent then what he does is that he orders dissolution of the legislature and holds a new election. That is probably what we are doing in West Bengal. I think we should take a lesson from that. I therefore think that even if we take these powers, we must give the provinces some democracy. So, for God’s sake remove this proviso to clause which gives powers to the President to deprive that province of autonomy for three years continuously without making any provision as to what will happen afterwards. The Drafting Committee should carefully consider this question. I am not the only person, nor my Friend Mr. Kamath is, but even many of our leaders in this House are of this opinion. I find that no less a person than Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant had tabled an amendment to this Article. So had Dr. H. N. Kunzru. Such men too were for deletion of this Article. I hope they have not changed their minds since and will support me in this matter.
