Mr. President, Sir, I am glad the Honourable Dr. Ambedkar expected the House to have a full-dress debate on this important provision. As the House has already seen, there has been a very important change from the first draft to the present proposals and the main and fundamental change is that we have left no powers with the Governor of a province to act in an emergency. We have concentrated all emergency powers in the hands of the President and the Parliament of India and have made the Governor merely a reporting authority so far as emergency and its Proclamation are concerned, Now this, I have no hesitation in saying, is a very radical change and a change which is neither in conformity with federation nor is likely to be administratively beneficial or even practicable. There are at least two arguments which have been suggested by the Honourable Dr. Ambedkar himself in his speech which support my contention. The one is that the spirit of this change is against the idea of federation, and secondly we would be over-burdened in the Parliament with responsibilities which naturally should be delegated to another authority. Some of my friends will probably say that when I am in favour of a unitary government, why do I not like the President or the Parliament having larger and larger powers. My answer to that is that this is neither fish nor fowl; it is neither a unitary government nor a federal government. If you wish to retain the least possible vestige of a Federation, you must not deprive the head of the unit or the state of all authority in such matters. As has been already pointed out by two previous speakers, you are going not only to override the discretion or the power of the Governor who is your own nominee, but you are going to set at naught the Ministers, the Cabinet in the State as well as the State legislatures.
