The Opposition notice for justice Yashwant Varma’s impeachment derailed the government’s meticulous plan to remove the sitting judge. Did former Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar’s move to kickstart the impeachment process of justice Yashwant Varma in the Rajya Sabha take the government, which wanted the process to go through the Lok Sabha, by surprise?
Was this the trigger that prompted the now former Vice President’s sudden resignation on Monday night?
On Tuesday, theories surrounding Dhankhar’s exit swirled around Delhi’s political circles, gathering momentum from the government’s delayed response to his resignation — the Prime Minister’s message came at 12.13pm, 15 hours and 18 minutes after the resignation was posted at 9.25pm by the Vice President’s X handle — as well as the promptness with which Rashtrapati Bhavan accepted the resignation, which was duly noted in the Gazette at 1.11pm.
The die was cast last week when Dhankhar, according to people familiar with the matter, asked some Opposition leaders to give a notice for the impeachment of justice Varma in the Rajya Sabha, even as the government wanted to bring the notice only in the Lok Sabha. The former Delhi high court judge faces removal after an undisclosed amount of money was found at his residence in March.
Accordingly, a senior Congress lawmaker who is also a lawyer, hurriedly prepared an impeachment notice on Sunday ; all 63 MPs who signed it on Monday were from the Opposition parties. Not a single NDA MP signed the Opposition-sponsored notice in the Rajya Sabha.
The reason: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had no idea that such a notice was being prepared.
Dhankhar himself came to the House after the first Business Advisory Committee meeting on Monday and announced, “I need to inform you that I have received notice of motion under Article 217(1)(B) read with Article 218 and Article 124…to constitute a statutory committee for removal of justice Yashwant Varma. This has been received by me today. It is signed by more than 50 members of the Council of States.” The notice derailed the government’s meticulous plan to remove justice Varma. A Lok Sabha official said, “The government wanted to pass the impeachment motion first in the Lok Sabha. It would have been touted as a success of the government and sent a clear message to the judiciary. But Dhankhar stole the show.”
A furious Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) decided that party chief and Leader of the Rajya Sabha JP Nadda and parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju would not attend the second BAC meeting led by Dhankhar in the evening.
Congress MP Jairam Ramesh linked Dhankhar’s resignation to recent events in Parliament, particularly the absence of the two senior ministers . “Yesterday, Shri Jagdeep Dhankar chaired the Business Advisory Committee of the Rajya Sabha at 12:30pm. It was attended by most members, including the Leader of the House JP Nadda and the minister of parliamentary affairs, Kiren Rijiju. After some discussion, the BAC decided to meet again at 4:30pm. The BAC reassembled under the chairmanship of Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar. It waited for Shri Nadda and Shri Rijiju to arrive. They never came. Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar was not personally informed that the two senior ministers were not attending. Rightly, he took umbrage and rescheduled the BAC for today at 1pm. So something very serious happened yesterday between 1pm and 4:30pm to account for the deliberate absence of Shri Nadda and Shri Rijiju from the second BAC yesterday,” Ramesh wrote on X.
Countering the claim, Union health minister JP Nadda said Dhankhar’s office was told they could not attend. “Kiren Rijiju and I did not attend the meeting called by the Vice President at 4:30pm because we were occupied with other important parliamentary work. The Vice President’s Office was intimated about our inability to attend the meeting,” he told reporters on Tuesday after attending a meeting convened by defence minister Rajnath Singh. Dhankhar then seems to have decided it was time to go. “It takes a lot of power to resign,” one of his aides told HT, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But if justice Varma’s impeachment was the trigger, there were other underlying issues as well, according to Opposition leaders.
Last week, when a senior Opposition floor leader of the Rajya Sabha met him, a candid Dhankhar spoke about the “pressure” of his work and how he had “gone out of his way” to accommodate the ruling establishment’s demands. According to a functionary aware of the details, “The Vice President described how he is getting a lot of flak from the Opposition for his role as the Rajya Sabha chairman. He was exceptionally cordial to the senior floor leader and told the latter’s aide, “Remember, you are working with a legend”.
