Why India Is Watching Two Constitutional Crises in the Same Week

The Bengal Story: A Defeat That Refuses to Be Defeat

Mamata Banerjee lost. The numbers are not in dispute. The BJP has become the first right-wing party to be elected in West Bengal since the state's assembly elections began in 1937, ending 15 years of Trinamool rule. Mamata herself lost Bhabanipur to her former protégé Suvendu Adhikari.

But she has not resigned. She is moving the Supreme Court. She has framed the entire process as illegitimate, with the Election Commission cast as the principal villain. Her position: the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls (SIR), the deletions, the irregularities — all of it makes the verdict unsafe. Until the court rules, she stays.

And here we have to be fair to her. The data that has emerged is genuinely uncomfortable.

According to the Election Commission's own figures, the SIR exercise removed approximately 9.1 million voters from West Bengal's rolls between October 2025 and the polls — shrinking the eligible electorate by nearly 12 per cent. Roughly two-thirds were classified as absent or deceased. The status of about 2.7 million names remained pending before tribunals when the election was held. Independent analyses noted that a disproportionate share of the undecided category came from Muslim-majority and Matua-Dalit pockets — precisely the constituencies where the swing decided the election.

And there is one more detail nobody can ignore. Of all the major political parties in Bengal, only one defended the SIR exercise from start to finish. That party was the BJP.

So Mamata Banerjee has a case. The Supreme Court will eventually have to engage with this data. But here is what she is refusing to accept — having a case is not the same as having the chair.

The Caretaker Convention Is a Bridge, Not a Residence

Article 164 of the Constitution says ministers hold office "during the pleasure of the Governor." That pleasure is governed by the simplest test in our democracy: majority support in the assembly. A Chief Minister does not auto-vacate the moment results come out. The government continues until she resigns, loses a floor test, or the assembly term ends.

This is the caretaker convention. Inherited from Westminster. Designed for one specific purpose — administrative continuity. Somebody has to sign files between one government and the next.

It is a bridge. Bridges are meant to be crossed. Not occupied.

If Mamata wants to fight her legal case, she should fight it. The data may even be on her side. But the chair is a separate question. The chair belongs to whoever holds the numbers in the new assembly. And until a floor test happens, she has no claim on that chair beyond the few days the convention allows.

The Tamil Nadu Mirror: The Winner Who Cannot Enter

Now flip the story. Travel from Kolkata to Chennai.

Joseph Vijay's TVK has, in its debut election, emerged as the single largest party in Tamil Nadu's first-ever hung assembly — winning 108 of 234 seats. The DMK has been reduced to 59. The AIADMK to 47. Outgoing Chief Minister M.K. Stalin himself lost his seat at Kolathur, becoming only the second incumbent CM in the state's history to do so, after J. Jayalalithaa.

On May 6, the Indian National Congress formally backed Vijay, ending its 22-year alliance with the DMK and committing its 5 MLAs. That puts the TVK-Congress combination at 113. With Vijay required to resign one of the two seats he contested, the effective tally is 112 — five short of the 117 majority mark in the reconstituted house.

Vijay walked into Lok Bhavan, met Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar, and presented the list. The Governor's response, conveyed through an official Lok Bhavan statement: that "the requisite majority support in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly, essential for forming the Government, has not been established." No invitation. No swearing-in date. The reported May 7 ceremony at Nehru Indoor Stadium — with Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge expected to attend — has now slipped.

And here is where the constitution starts to bite.

Because the Governor's job after a hung assembly is not to be convinced of anything. The Governor's job is to identify who is most likely to command a majority — and let the floor test do the rest.

The Sarkaria–Punchhi Order of Preference

The Sarkaria Commission, and later the Punchhi Commission, laid this down with unusual clarity. After a hung mandate, the Governor's order of preference is:

1. A pre-poll alliance with majority.

2. The single largest party with possible support.

3. A post-poll coalition where parties join before the government is formed.

4. A post-electoral alliance of parties — including those willing to extend outside support.

In Tamil Nadu, no rival coalition has emerged. No one has demonstrated stronger numbers than the TVK-Congress combination. Under the Sarkaria framework, Vijay should have been invited and given a defined window to prove his majority. Period.

S.R. Bommai vs Union of India (1994). Rameshwar Prasad vs Union of India (2006). The Shiv Sena cases of 2019 and 2022. Every major Supreme Court ruling on this question has said the same thing — a Governor cannot block a claimant from proving majority on the floor of the house. Swear them in. Set a deadline. Call the floor test. Let the assembly decide.

What is happening in Tamil Nadu is the opposite of that. The Governor is substituting his political judgment for the assembly's verdict. That is exactly the kind of overreach the court has been warning against for thirty years.

The Single Principle Underneath Both Stories

Bring the two cases back to one beautifully simple principle.

The assembly decides.

Not Raj Bhavan. Not the Chief Minister's office. Not the media. Not even the Supreme Court, in the first instance. The elected assembly itself.

This is why temporary continuity is acceptable for a defeated CM — but only until a successor is sworn in. This is why minority governments are sometimes sworn in — but only with an immediate trust vote. Governors are not constitutional umpires. They are facilitators.

When Mamata refuses to resign and runs to court, she is substituting litigation for the floor test.

When the Tamil Nadu Governor refuses to invite Vijay, he is substituting his judgment for the floor test.

From completely opposite political positions, both are doing the same fundamental thing. They are circumventing the assembly. And the assembly is exactly where the constitution says these questions must be answered.

Three Precedents. Three Decades. One Reflex.

If you think any of this is abstract, look at the precedents. Three names. The entire story.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee, 1996. BJP largest party in the Lok Sabha. Sworn in despite no clear majority. Thirteen days as Prime Minister. When the floor test loomed and the numbers were not there — he resigned. Before the vote. He did not cling. He did not litigate. He did not blame the Election Commission. That is what made Vajpayee a constitutional benchmark.

B.S. Yediyurappa, 2018. Karnataka. BJP largest single party, short of majority. The Governor invited him. The Supreme Court intervened to order an immediate floor test. Two days in office. When the numbers were not there, he resigned before the vote. Two days is the maximum even a single largest party leader gets if the support cannot be demonstrated.

Uddhav Thackeray, 2022. Maharashtra. Shiv Sena rebellion fractured his coalition. The Supreme Court ordered an immediate floor test. Before the test happened, Uddhav resigned.

Three different leaders. Three different parties. Three different decades. One identical constitutional reflex. The assembly votes. The chair follows.

Why Mamata and the Tamil Nadu Governor Are Pushing Anyway

So why are both poles of Indian politics pushing the limits this week?

Because they have realised something the purists will not admit out loud. The space between law and legitimacy has expanded. The political cost of stretching the constitution has gone down.

Governors face criticism but no real consequences. Defeated leaders generate sympathy by claiming they were robbed. Litigation drags on for years — and during those years, narratives can be built and political capital can be banked. The voter outrage that the constitution was designed to channel into the next election gets diffused across news cycles, court hearings and opinion columns until everyone is too exhausted to remember what the original violation looked like.

The people pushing the envelope right now are not pushing because they don't know better. They are pushing because they have calculated that the institutional response has weakened.

That calculation is the actual crisis. Not the individual cases.

What the Supreme Court Has to Say

The Supreme Court has to draw a clear line on both sides at once.

It has to tell Mamata that even with the SIR data on her side, defeat means defeat — the chair is not a hostage to litigation. The remedy for an allegedly tainted election is judicial review of that election. Not occupation of the office produced by it.

It has to tell the Tamil Nadu Governor that "not convinced" is not a constitutional standard. The floor test is. A Governor's discretion stops at the assembly door. Inside that door, only the elected MLAs decide.

And it has to do both. Because if the court acts on one and not the other — if it disciplines a Governor in the south while letting a defeated Chief Minister stay in the east, or vice versa — the constitutional convention becomes a partisan weapon. And the framework India has spent seven decades building starts to come apart.