As the Parliament meets today for the first time after the repeat of the landslide victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its alliance, the NDA, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the press gallery would be curious to see some fresh faces and also absence of a few known stalwarts from both the houses. While former External Affairs Minister and the BJP stalwart Sushma Swaraj and former Finance Minister and party’s chief strategy planner Arun Jaitley would be among the prominent absentees, of course, owing their own desire to opt themselves out due to ill-health; former Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and BJP stalwart octogenarian leader Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi have been asked to ship out as they have crossed the age limit of 75. A few multi-term MPs like Anant Gite, Shivajirao Adhalrao and Chandrakant Khaire (all from Shiv Sena) have faced defeats in the last elections. There are a couple of more faces whose absence would be felt during the proceedings.
However, one of the most significant features of the new House is that the Parliament would not see any former Prime Minister during the session. As Manmohan Singh’s nearly 30-year-long tenure as a Rajya Sabha member ended on Friday and HD Deve Gowda lost from Tumkur seat in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, no former Prime Minister will be present in the upcoming budget session of the Parliament.
Fall of Deve Gowda
Former Karnataka chief minister Deve Gowda, who rose to be the Prime Minister of India from June 1996 to April 1997, was the 11the Prime Minister during a turbulent time in Indian politics. He was forced to step down after a no-confidence motion was passed against him in the Lok Sabha. He lost to the BJP’s GS Basavaraj from Tumkur Lok Sabha constituency by little over 13,000 votes in the last Lok Sabha election. Earlier, Deve Gowda would regularly contest from Hassan parliamentary constituency. However, he had vacated his seat to field his grandson Prajwal Revanna from there. Soon, after the Lok Sabha results were announced on May 23, Revanna, who defeated BJP’s A Manju from Hassan by a margin of 1.41 lakh votes, offered to resign from the seat to get his grandfather re-elected. “To reinstate the confidence of JD(S) cadre, we have to fill the gap left by the defeat of HD Deve Gowda. Therefore, I have decided to tender my resignation. I want him to be victorious once again from Hassan,” said Prajwal, who was the only JD(S) candidate to be able to win his seat in Karnataka.
After his loss, Deve Gowda said, “As a former Prime Minister, I have been defeated twice. This is not a big issue. My concern is how to save a regional party. I will see that JD(S) strengthens its base. I will take responsibility and proceed forward. I am not going to blame anybody for the loss. How it happened is not to be discussed in media.” BJP ruled out JD(S)-Congress alliance in Karnataka by winning 25 out of 28 seats. The Congress and the JD(S) received one seat each, while one seat went to an independent candidate. Similar to its performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress party didn’t perform well in 2019 general election and managed to win only on 52 seats.
Due to Congress’ poor performance, Manmohan Singh, who was the Prime Minister of India from 2004 to 2014, will be missed in the upcoming budget session of the parliament as his nearly 30-year-long tenure as a Rajya Sabha member ended on Friday. Dr Singh would not be present in the Rajya Sabha for the first time since his first election from Assam in 1991 as he could not make up to the Parliament’s upper House due to Congress’ poor strength in the state Assembly. The Congress party could not get him re-elected from Assam as it has only 25 legislators as against 43 first-preference required votes. The party even cannot send Dr Singh from other states where Rajya Sabha seats are vacant. With BJP’s Kamakhya Prasad Tasa and AGP’s Birender Prasad Baishya’s unopposed election from Assam, a total of nine seats are lying vacant in Odisha (4), Tamil Nadu (1), Bihar (2) and Gujarat (2).
Shortage of seats for the Congress
The Congress does not have the required numbers to secure any Rajya Sabha berths in these states, except Gujarat, where it is eyeing to grab at least one seat. Although Dr Singh can be sent to the House from Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan or Punjab, there are no immediate vacancies in these states. During his tenure as Rajya Sabha parliamentarian, Dr Singh led the upper house for 10 years from 2004 to 2014 and acted as the Leader of the Opposition for six years. Dr Singh was last elected to the House in 2013.
In short, the new look scenario in the Parliament of India would be quite different than earlier. It would be a worth watch how the two houses function without the stalwarts for earlier years. Will this be a new House in the real sense of the term or will it turn out to be the ‘old wine in the new bottle’ with cosmetic changes is to be seen.
-Bharatkumar Raut
The writer is a political analyst and former Member of Parliament (RS).
