Union Minister says invitation to BJP is ‘constitutional’

New Delhi/Bengaluru: Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in press conference here on Wednesday that Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala’s invitation to the BJP to form the government was within constitutional norms. He quoted from the Sarkaria Commission, the M.M. Punchhi Commission and a Supreme Court order from 2016 regarding the Arunachal Assembly to prove his point.

“The largest pre-poll alliance is to be invited, after which consideration is to be given to the single largest party that stakes a claim to form the government and finally, to a post poll alliance,” he said. He also added that the Supreme Court has not questioned the Governor’s right to discretion, but only mandates that it should not be arbitrary.

When he was asked about the Assembly elections in Goa and Manipur, where the Governors had not invited the single largest party that is the Congress to form the government, Prasad stated that the Congress had not staked a claim at all in those cases. He said that the single largest party that stakes claim to form the government and states that it commands the support of others will eventually win.