NDA's Report Card Is Out

And the UPA fails I think. Related news item here. Most of it to be expected from any Opposition, some of it true like misusing Governors, failing to contain naxalites (though this has been happening for longer than one year). Some of it I think misplaced. Like this:

The NDA criticised the ``extra-constitutional position of power'' attained by Congress president Sonia Gandhi as Chairperson of the National Advisory Council (NAC) and ``devaluation'' of the Prime Minister's post.

A major demand made by the NDA was to disband the NAC or make the Chairperson accountable to Parliament.

I'm not a constitutional expert and don't claim any familarity with it - sadly and very unfortunately - so it could really be extra-constitutional. But apparently the Left is also acting as an "extra-constitutional centre of power". I don't get it - what has the Left done apart from forcing the government to address their concerns? Whether their concerns are universally approved or not is another matter, but what is extra-constitutional about it?

Well, it doesn't matter, I say, as long as the two are not unconstitutional. And the Supreme Court is there to decide that.

As for me, I think it is a good idea and indicates a fresh approach. I find nothing in the stated functions to cause alarm:

a). To monitor the progress of the implementation of the Common Minimum Programme;
b) To provide inputs for the formulation of policy by the Government and to provide support to the Government in its legislative business

And the working of the NAC over the last year has not given grounds for the charges being made. The inputs thus far seem to be in certain areas that it apparently has expertise in. It is staying out of a lot of other areas like finance, commerce. So why disband it? Any government should be glad for all the inputs it gets. As for making the Chairperson accountable to Parliament, how would that help? The group is just giving inputs (and pretty transparently at that - it is all out there online). The government will take a call on the inputs and is anyway accountable to Parliament. At least in theory and when Parliament works as intended, which is not very often.

Along with the release of the report card, it was also announced that the NDA is apparently thinking of challenging the Bihar assembly dissolution in court. The dust is yet to settle. Hate to keep bringing it up, but it would have been easier to sympathise with all this if the NDA had taken other issues equally to heart. Or is power the only game in town?

PS: This just as an aside. When thinking about extra-constitutional stuff governments do, I recalled the NDA appointing an ambassador at-large in New York City. That may or may not have been extra-constitutional, but I remember disapproving of it at that time. It seemed such a curious (note: requires free registration) thing to do. And look who agrees. And the whole thing was illegal as per US law at that time. One more link here. But the ambassador-at-large's future was beautiful apparently.