Punjab: What’s New Delhi up to in Chandigarh?

In hindsight, say the people of Punjab, the signs were always there of the BJP and Union government’s growing interest in Chandigarh. Home minister Amit Shah’s visits to the Union Territory had grown more frequent. IAS officers from the Punjab and Haryana cadres were systematically being replaced by ‘outsiders’ or IAS officers from the Arunachal Pradesh–Goa–Mizoram and Union Territory (AGMUT) cadre.

The most recent indication was New Delhi’s aborted attempt to replace Panjab University’s elected Senate and Syndicate, the university’s policy-making and executive bodies, respectively.

There have been other flashpoints as well, including the deployment of Central paramilitary forces at projects maintained by the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) and disputes with New Delhi over flood-related assistance.

The latest political storm broke after a Parliament bulletin on 21 November listed the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2025, for introduction in the winter session starting 1 December.

The listing signalled the Centre’s intent to place Chandigarh under Article 240, giving the President sweeping regulatory powers over the Union Territory, as in other UTs without legislatures. Its timing lay at the heart of the controversy: proposed just when the BJP is pushing to expand its footprint in the state and preparing to contest next month’s zila parishad and block samiti elections on its own.

Why would New Delhi want Chandigarh under Article 240? As a Union Territory, Chandigarh’s budget is prepared by the Union finance ministry and any structural legislation must be passed by Parliament.

Under Article 240, however, changes can be imposed via a simple presidential notification, bypassing Parliament. Recent moves in Lakshadweep and the Andaman- Nicobar Islands illustrate the scale and scope of government intervention this could allow.

Even without bringing Article 240 into the picture, New Delhi has already tightened the screws on Chandigarh. Its moves include implementing Central service rules for UT employees instead of Punjab service rules, redesignating the advisor to the administrator (governor) as the chief secretary, and appointing more AGMUT cadre officers in key departments like health and transport, once earmarked for Punjab and Haryana cadre officers.

Political observers see these developments as a steady movement towards increased centralisation and bureaucratic control. The question is: what does New Delhi hope to gain by pushing for a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds majority in both Houses, which it doesn’t even have?

The bulletin caught Punjabis by surprise, which soon gave way to fury as people and political parties alike pushed back, calling the proposal unacceptable. The Punjab unit of the BJP felt the heat enough to hold an online meeting on 22 November to convey to central leaders that the reaction to such a change would be explosive.

Central leaders were told that the move was widely seen in Punjab as paving the way for a full-time independent administrator or lieutenant-governor, marking a break from the 1984 arrangement where the governor of Punjab also served as Chandigarh’s administrator.

On 23 November, the Modi government backtracked, asserting that it had no intention of presenting and passing the Bill in the winter session. This clumsy damage-control fooled nobody. Was there any guarantee that the move would not be revived months later?

With the party already having lost a fair amount of goodwill during its year-long stand-off with farmers beginning 2021, the BJP’s Punjab leaders are upset at the ill-timed move, just about a year ahead of Assembly elections.

The Centre pulled out all stops to make the state unit fall in line, circulating an explanatory note highlighting that while Parliament currently has the authority to legislate for Chandigarh, no laws tailored to its needs have been enacted since 1966, except for the Punjab Reorganisation Act 1966 and Chandigarh (Delegation of Powers) Act 1987.

The note further explained that other Union Territories under Article 240 can enact laws for their ‘local requirements’ with Presidential approval and without Parliamentary intervention.

In contrast, Chandigarh always had to extend laws passed by other states, which it did not often benefit from. Punjab’s BJP leaders, however, remained unmoved. Citing distrust towards the Union government, they warned that now was not the right time for such a change.

It is true that Chandigarh cannot be compared with Lakshadweep, Puducherry or Daman and Diu. With an estimated population of 1.5 million — far larger than Lakshadweep’s 64,000, Puducherry’s 250,000 and the Andaman-Nicobar Islands’ 450,000 — Chandigarh was built to make up for the loss of Lahore which went to Pakistan in 1947.

One of the first planned cities in India, it was designed by Le Corbusier and remained the capital of Punjab until Haryana and Himachal Pradesh were carved out of the state in 1966. Since then, it has functioned as the capital of both Punjab and Haryana, with Punjab repeatedly asserting its historical claim over the city. In 1986, Chandigarh was nearly handed over to Punjab after the Rajiv–Longowal accord, but the deal was scuttled at the last moment.

How and by whom Chandigarh is governed will continue to be contested, reflecting broader fault lines between Punjab’s regional sensitivities and the Centre’s push for centralisation and administrative uniformity across Union Territories.