It is deeply saddening how Parliament has been reduced to a virtual tamasha by the Congress opposition in cahoots with some other opposition parties. It is not only no longer a forum for serious discussion and debate on issues that concern and agitate the country at large but it has been reduced to a sorry spectacle of how not members of Parliament should behave.
It is true that the BJP, when it was in the Opposition, used the same negative tactics of disruption to thwart work as the Congress is doing now but it is hugely disturbing that we choose to perpetuate the wrongs of the past rather than improving with time and learning from them.
It would be puerile to fault the Speaker, Sumitra Mahajan, for flying into a rage and suspending 25 Congress MPs for five days for unruly behaviour in the Lok Sabha after many of them jumped into the well of the House with placards, disturbing the sanctity of the House. Anybody with a degree of sensitivity would have been struck by revulsion over the manner in which the Congress party has been behaving, scuttling all attempts at debate and discussion.
Not a day’s business has been transacted since the Parliament session began over two weeks ago. The principle of ‘no work, no pay’ has been talked about in regard to MPs but there is little weight behind the official claim that it would be implemented soon. In fact, speculation is rife that the ruling BJP may appeal to the Speaker to cut short the suspension of Congress MPs, a move that would give the Congress and other Opposition parties unnecessary mileage.
On Monday as the House assembled, Congress president Sonia Gandhi assumed a posture of defiance when she ruled out her party’s cooperation in the smooth conduct of parliamentary business if Union Minister Sushma Swaraj, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan were not divested of their responsibilities. Her son and heir-apparent Rahul Gandhi echoed the same sentiment. In the Congress culture of extreme subservience and sycophancy, it should come as no surprise if any one who matters in the party parrots the same lines. While their personal pique with the BJP and its leaders is their own business, the country cannot be held to ransom with crucial decisions on policy issues held hostage to Congress whims.
Earlier in the day, the Congress had also stayed away from the all-party meet called to resolve the tangle in Parliament.
The Congress, which has 44 lawmakers in the Lok Sabha, is on a boycott of Parliament during the period of its members’ suspension. The Trinamool Congress, which requested the Speaker to be more lenient, will also boycott Parliament for five days. So will the Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal United and the Left.
The Samajwadi Party has been making some gestures of support towards the BJP but is unprepared to break ranks with the Opposition. The CPM under Sitaram Yechury has assumed a more pro-Congress and anti-BJP posture but general elections are nearly four years away and there is no knowing how equations would be at that point of time.
Currently, the BJP’s floor managers in Parliament have failed miserably in wrenching the peripheral players away from the Opposition ranks. Doubtlessly, the Assembly elections in Bihar are a factor. If the BJP manages to give the Janata Dal (U)-RJD-Congress a sound beating, there could be a slight shift in stand towards the BJP. But it goes without saying that the BJP faces an uphill task in Bihar and if it is mauled, it could well face harder times in Parliament.
The BJP’s purported move to withdraw all the key amendments to the controversial land acquisition Bill and to present virtually the original Congress bill to Parliament for adoption is a retrograde move that betrays the panic in the BJP’s ranks.
The BJP needs to realize that people at large are fatigued and exasperated by the Congress tactics of preventing any forward movement on the pending economic Bills and buckling under pressure would negate the gains in exposing the Congress as being anti-progress for its partisan ends.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday articulated a view that could win many takers. His statement that the Congress is striking at the country’s progress by sabotaging the passing of important economic legislation could well find resonance if the land Bill is finally scuttled by the Congress in a show of acute myopia.
The Opposition has also been up in arms because of Prime Minister Modi’s sphinx-like silence on the purported misdemeanours of Sushma Swaraj, Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Singh Chauhan but with the BJP’s supremo showing an inclination to make a statement in Parliament on the Sushma Swaraj issue, the wind could well go out of the Opposition’s sails. Modi’s veiled terms are that the Opposition must return to debate the issue if he is to make a statement, which is a fair expectation.
Evidently, the Congress cannot hold out on the disruptive stance in the Rajya Sabha and to a lesser extent in the Lok Sabha for long, without causing serious erosion in its credibility.
As for the Modi government, it would not be enough for it to drift along on the path on which it is at present. It needs to recognize that there is a groundswell of disillusionment with its government for the growing number of unfulfilled promises and for the mediocrity and arrogance of some of its ministers. It surely needs to take corrective measures in right earnest and to proactively wean away some of the Opposition parties from the path of agitation adopted by the Congress for its own partisan reasons.
