https://countercurrents.org/2022/02/onslaught-on-federalism-an-appeal-for-a-federal-front/
To
Shri K Chandrasekhar Rao
Chief Minister
Telangana
Dear Shri Chandrasekhar Rao garu,
I had earlier written to you on 8-2-2022 welcoming your opposition to the Centre’s unilateral proposal to privatise the Singareni Collieries. Considering it from the point of view of federalism, in that letter I had suggested that the States should come together to counter the growing threat to federalism. For your ready reference, I have enclosed here a copy of that letter.
Of late, the manner in which the Central leadership has been trying to enlarge the Centre’s presence in several areas that legitimately belong to the States, has created serious apprehensions in the minds of the States, on the motives underlying the same. The Centre seems to be deliberately making efforts to disturb the existing Centre-States relations, which are primarily based on the division of responsibilities as laid down in the Constitution and, in addition, nurtured collectively by the Centre and the States through practices and conventions based on mutual respect.
The three-tier democratic structure provided in the Constitution recognises the principle that, closer the decision making authority is to the people, the greater would be its accountability. In a nation that has diverse cultures and regional identities like ours, participative decision making processes alone can deliver beneficial outcomes. The States have a preeminent role in this, especially that relate to the welfare of the people. This is the reason that the Constitution has empowered the States to legislate in all such areas that relate to the overall socio-economic development of the people. In the past, the Centre and the States used to function as equal partners in development and compliment each others’ efforts. Of late, the situation has altered as the Centre is now trying to centralise authority in several ways, to the detriment of federalism. The Central leadership should know that diminishing the strength of the States would automatically weaken the strength of the nation as a whole.
I have cited a few examples of the Centre’s attempts to encroach on the States’ domain.
Centre’s unilateral decision to privatise the CPSEs wholesale
In my letter dated 8-2-2022, I had explained how the Centre is bent upon selling the assets of the Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) built assiduously over the last several decades, without consulting the States, ignoring the fact that the CPSEs would not have come up in the first instance without support from the States. It was the States that acquired lands for the CPSEs at less-than-market prices, assuring the land-owners that their lands were being acquired exclusively for a wholly owned government company. Today, without consulting the States, the Centre is moving fast to sell their assets, including the lands, in the name of raising additional fiscal resources for its own budget. What they are doing is prima facie violative of the welfare mandate of the state as spelt out in the Directive Principles and Article 16.
by E A S Sarma
24/02/2022