Political System of Uttar Pradesh: Governor, Chief Minister and Legislature

What the official syllabus says

Main Examination, General Studies V:

• Political System of UP: Governance, Governor, Chief Minister, Council of Ministers, State Assembly and State Council, Center-State Relation.

Topics in detail

The Constitution sets out the state government in Part VI. Learn the Articles once in General Studies II, then add the UP facts here: the sizes of the Houses, the institutions in Lucknow and how the state is run.

Governance and administration

• Seat of government: Lucknow; the Secretariat, the Chief Secretary and departments headed by Additional Chief Secretaries and Principal Secretaries
• Field administration: divisions under Divisional Commissioners, districts under District Magistrates, then tehsils and development blocks
• UP has 75 districts grouped into 18 divisions
• The district as the unit of revenue, law and order and development; the role of the Chief Development Officer

Governor

• Appointment by the President (Article 155), five-year term during the President's pleasure (Article 156), qualifications (Article 157)
• Executive powers (Article 154); appointment of the Chief Minister and, on the Chief Minister's advice, other ministers (Article 164)
• Discretion (Article 163), especially in a hung Assembly and in reports under Article 356
• Legislative powers: summoning and proroguing the Houses, address to the legislature, assent to bills and reservation for the President (Articles 200 and 201), ordinances (Article 213)
• Pardoning power (Article 161); nominating members to the Legislative Council
• Chancellor of state universities under the state universities law; the Raj Bhavan in Lucknow

Chief Minister and Council of Ministers

• Council of Ministers to aid and advise the Governor (Article 163); collective responsibility to the Vidhan Sabha (Article 164)
• Size limit of 15 per cent of the Assembly (91st Amendment, 2003): at most 60 ministers in UP
• Cabinet ministers, Ministers of State (Independent Charge) and Ministers of State
• Duties of the Chief Minister to inform the Governor (Article 167); rules of business (Article 166)
• Cabinet committees, the Chief Minister's office and coordination with departments

State Legislature: Vidhan Sabha and Vidhan Parishad

• UP has a bicameral legislature (Article 168); Article 169 lets Parliament create or abolish a Legislative Council on the Assembly's resolution
• Vidhan Sabha: 403 elected members, the largest state Assembly in India, with seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
• Vidhan Parishad: 100 members, of whom 38 are elected by MLAs, 36 by local authorities, 8 by graduates, 8 by teachers, and 10 nominated by the Governor (Article 171)
• Presiding officers: Speaker and Deputy Speaker; Chairman and Deputy Chairman
• Law-making: ordinary bills, money bills (Articles 198 and 199) and the limited role of the Council
• Financial control: budget, demands for grants, appropriation; committees such as the Public Accounts Committee, Estimates Committee and Committee on Public Undertakings
• Question hour, zero hour, privileges, anti-defection rules (Tenth Schedule); the National e-Vidhan Application

Centre-State relations

• Legislative relations: Seventh Schedule lists, Articles 245 to 254; Parliament's power over state subjects in special cases (Articles 249, 250, 252, 253)
• Administrative relations: Articles 256, 257 and 365; All India Services; the Governor as a link
• Financial relations: tax devolution through the Finance Commission (Article 280), grants (Articles 275 and 282), centrally sponsored schemes, GST and the GST Council (Article 279A)
• UP receives the largest share of tax devolution among states under recent Finance Commissions, because of its population and income level
• President's Rule (Article 356) and the S.R. Bommai judgment (1994); UP has been under President's Rule several times
• Inter-State Council (Article 263) and the Central Zonal Council, of which UP is a member
• Reports on Centre-State relations: Sarkaria Commission and Punchhi Commission
• Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000, and the division of assets and liabilities with Uttarakhand

UP's legislature in numbers

Overlaps

• Parliament and state legislatures, the executive and federal issues: General Studies II.
• Constitutional and state bodies of UP: Public Service, Audit, Advocate General and High Court.