The role of the President of India becomes more significant during a minority government and a coalition government. Explain. (2021, 15 Marks)
B. R. Ambedkar called the President head of the State but not of the Executive, and since the 42nd and 44th Amendments Article 74(1) binds the office to ministerial advice. R. Venkataraman likened it to an emergency lamp that lights only when the main supply fails. A hung House or fragile coalition is that failure, and the questions the Constitution leaves open then demand answers.
Where the role expands
1. Appointing the Prime Minister (Article 75(1)) The text sets no criterion, so a hung House turns formality into judgement.
- 1979: Neelam Sanjiva Reddy invited Charan Singh on the condition that he prove his majority. Singh resigned without facing the House, and Reddy dissolved it on his advice, passing over Jagjivan Ram‘s rival claim.
- 1989–91: Venkataraman established the practice of inviting the single largest party or pre-poll combination and requiring an early confidence vote.
- 1996: Shankar Dayal Sharma invited Atal Bihari Vajpayee as leader of the largest party; his thirteen-day government exposed that test’s weakness.
- 1998: K. R. Narayanan asked Vajpayee for allies’ letters of support and a confidence vote within a fixed period. The practice holds: in June 2024, Droupadi Murmu appointed Narendra Modi on the strength of the NDA’s written support.
- The Sarkaria Commission (1988) and the Punchhi Commission (2010) proposed an order of preference running from pre-poll alliance to largest party to post-poll coalition. S. R. Bommai (1994) made the floor test the final check.
2. Testing confidence and dissolving the House
- When an ally withdraws, the President may demand a confidence vote, as Narayanan did in April 1999; Vajpayee lost by one vote.
- Dissolution becomes a real choice: Narayanan dissolved the House in 1997 and 1999 only after satisfying himself that no stable alternative existed.
3. Scrutinising advice
- The Article 74(1) proviso allows the President to return advice once. Narayanan returned the Article 356 proposals against Uttar Pradesh (October 1997, United Front) and Bihar (September 1998, NDA). The Gujral government dropped the first; the Vajpayee government pressed the second again in February 1999, but the proclamation was revoked within weeks because it lacked Rajya Sabha support.
4. Influence: Walter Bagehot’s rights to be consulted, to encourage and to warn, with the Article 78 right to information, weigh more when prime-ministerial authority is shared.
Limits
- The discretion is episodic and ends once a government has shown it commands the House.
- Zail Singh‘s pocket veto of the Indian Post Office (Amendment) Bill, 1986, against Rajiv Gandhi‘s huge majority, shows assertion is possible anytime but only as obstruction.
- The risk is partisanship: the invitation rules are guidance, not law, and Governors have repeatedly used parallel discretion to favour claimants.
Conclusion
The President’s significance rises in a hung Parliament because the conditions that make Article 74 automatic are then missing. Venkataraman and Narayanan used that space to build procedural conventions (letters of support, early floor tests, reasoned returns of advice) rather than to govern: the office works best as referee of the parliamentary process, not a player in it.