DW BUREAU / PATIALA EAS Sarma, former secretary to the government of India has appealed to Bhagwant Mann, Chief Minister of Punjab to form a Federal Front to contain the onslaught on federalism. Sarma in his letter of March 26 to Bhagwant Mann has written that Punjab to come onto a common platform with other chief ministers to collectively act to protect the spirit of federalism that should prevail in the long-run. The states should realise that affront to federalism in the case of one state amounts to an affront to the concept of federalism in general. In the federal framework in which the centre and the states are expected to function harmoniously in accordance with the Constitution. Their relations are expected to be based on mutual respect and trust. The successive governments at the Centre had consciously nurtured and promoted this concept. In recent times, there has been a distressing tendency on the part of the Centre to intrude unduly in areas that legitimately belong to the States, which has the effect of eroding the political identity of the State. V K Gupta, Spokesperson of the All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) informed that as per letter the Centre unilaterally enacted laws such as the three farm Laws and the Bill to amend the Electricity Act 2003 that tends to curtail the states' authority, without casting matching accountability on the Centre. Enacting such laws without consulting the stakeholders including the States is undemocratic and unsustainable. The Centre's unilateral, sweeping orders on large-scale central public sector enterprises (CPSE )disinvestment and the monetisation of lands in which the states have a significant stake in several ways has evoked resistance from the states. (editor@dailyworld.in)