In the bizarre electoral mathematics of Indian politics, 78 plus 38 equals 116, but that is a far smaller number than 104.

Or at least that’s the key takeaway from Karnataka governor Vajubhai Vala’s decision to swear in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s BS Yeddyurappa as the South Indian state’s new chief minister and provide him with a generous 15-day window to prove his majority on the floor of the state assembly. That generosity had even the Indian Supreme Court questioning the motive and logic behind the time frame.

With the court observing that the governor’s decision defied arithmetic, the legal battle for Yeddyurappa and his party is far from over.

Instead of upholding his constitutional duty of ensuring a stable government, the governor seems to have held out an open invitation for the BJP to cash in on the opportunity to bridge the gap between its current 104 lawmakers and the 112 required for majority in the assembly. The aftermath of such a decision is likely to ensure anything but stability for a minority government. Questions continue to swirl about Vala — a former BJP minister who founded the Hindu nationalist Jan Sangh in his home state of Gujarat and vacated his seat in favour of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi — and his decision to invite the BJP first instead of the Congress-JDS coalition, which had clearly listed its notional majority in the 224-member assembly.

But Indian governors acting out of their ideological or political anchorage is not a new phenomenon — and political parties across the spectrum, including the Congress and the BJP, have been beneficiaries of similar generosities in the past. The fact remains that the Indian Constitution provides a great deal of subjective discretion in the hands of a governor during such critical moments as a hung assembly, which allows the incumbent to manoeuvre with such mathematically and constitutionally challenging decisions while seemingly staying within the ambit of law. Article 361 of the Indian Constitution also gives immunity to the governor from judicial intervention, assuming that the governor will act fairly. But with the recent examples of a fractured mandates in Goa and Manipur, such absolute discretion vested in the hands of a constitutional authority could often result in a legal tussle, as it has happened now in Karnataka. There is, therefore, an urgent need to review the role of state governors and their constitutional responsibility in India, with the aim of reducing the scope of such a scenario recurring in the future. For now, no matter which party or coalition ultimately gets to govern Karnataka, the swearing in of a new chief minister amid an unprecedented midnight court battle, the ongoing political slugfest, the allegations of threats and the accusations of cash for lawmakers’ loyalty will only work to erode public faith in India’s democratic institutions.