Capital Grabs

Born of bureaucratic logic in Delhi, the Chandigarh proposal has collided headlong with history and federal nerves in Punjab.

Punjab

The Centre’s recent aborted attempt to pull Chandigarh under Article 240 has turned incendiary. The proposal on November 21 “to amend the Constitution to bring Chandigarh under Article 240” detonated like a depth charge beneath Punjab’s already choppy waters.

The reaction in Punjab was immediate and furious. Chief minister Bhagwant Mann accused the Centre of plotting to “snatch” Punjab’s capital. The Shiromani Akali Dal called it a direct assault on the state’s rights. The Congress demanded immediate withdrawal. Even the BJP’s Punjab unit, wary of electoral fallout ahead of 2027, rushed to distance itself. Within 48 hours the Union home ministry beat a retreat, promising consultations and shelving the bill for the winter session. But the episode has already revealed how fragile India’s federal equilibrium has become.

From Delhi’s point of view, the case is not entirely frivolous. Chandigarh is one of the last constitutional curiosities of post-1960s India: a Union Territory governed under Article 239, administered by the Punjab governor in an additional capacity, yet still governed largely by the laws of a long-vanished undivided Punjab. Shifting the city under Article 240 would align it with other legislature-less Union Territories, simplify service rules, and hand the Centre unequivocal regulatory authority.

There are security concerns behind the rationale as well. The present arrangement dates to 1984, when terrorism and President’s Rule in Punjab made coordination imperative. Four decades later the logic has inverted: a city that hosts two state capitals, sits astride sensitive border politics and houses strategic institutions is precisely the sort of place the Centre increasingly prefers to run directly rather than through layered federal intermediaries. The bitter turf war between Punjab and Haryana cadres, the erosion of the 60:40 officer ratio, and the shift to central service rules since 2022 already point to a de facto central enclave. The amendment would merely formalise what practice has been drifting towards.

Nor would Chandigarh be an exception. From the reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir to the steady circumscription of Delhi’s elected government, India has been living through a quiet phase of constitutional recentralisation. In this wider mosaic, Chandigarh is just another tile.

Yet, this managerial logic from the Centre’s point of view feels like constitutional trespass for Punjab. Chandigarh is not merely an administrative unit but a historical consolation prize for Lahore, the city Sikhs lost at Partition. Built on land acquired from some 50 villages and inaugurated in 1953 as independent India’s first planned capital, it became a monument to survival and modernity. When Punjab was split in 1966 and Haryana carved out, Chandigarh was declared a temporary shared capital. That ‘temporary’ arrangement hardened into permanence. In 1970 Indira Gandhi’s government declared the city “should as a whole go to Punjab.” The Rajiv–Longowal Accord of 1985 reaffirmed it. Implementation was then quietly buried under territorial disputes and political fatigue.

Against that backdrop, Article 240 is a blunt constitutional instrument that allows the President to make regulations with the force of law, bypassing Parliament altogether. In practical terms, it would allow laws governing Chandigarh to be rewritten by executive notification. Even something as basic as the mayor’s tenure could, in theory, be altered by a file signed in North Block.

The timing only sharpened the provocation. Barely a month earlier, the Centre had interfered in Panjab University’s governance. Since 2022, Punjab has protested the steady sidelining of its officers from Chandigarh’s administration in favour of central and Haryana cadres.

Politicization of this episode has been predictably swift. Mann, once mocked for theatrics, now presents himself as Chandigarh’s defender. The Akalis seek to reclaim their vanished monopoly over Sikh political sentiment. The Congress waits patiently for the churn to weaken its rivals. The BJP, still scarred by the farm-law revolt, knows that even the perception of tampering with Punjab’s symbols is electoral poison.

The deeper issue, however, runs beyond party advantage. It is about how India now reconciles power and federalism. Chandigarh’s present governance, though improvised, has nonetheless worked for over 40 years. The reform it truly needs is not presidential fiat but local empowerment.