Contrary to popular perception, it is not a strong opposition that paralyses parliament. In reality, it is a weak government that brings the parliament to a standstill. The weakness of the Modi Sarkar has been in full view during the three weeks of the deadlocked monsoon session of the Parliament. That a numerically emaciated Congress party has been able to dictate the agenda of a Parliament that is dominated by a muscular ruling party having a popular mandate that has never been seen in the last three decades is a sad commentary on the way the ruling party is managing its affairs. It is still content with a smug satisfaction that the disruptions bring a bad name to the Congress, and will harm it politically, little realising that it was through the same disruptive tactics that they had themselves reaped a good harvest of votes. So, if the disruptions did not bring the BJP a bad name from 2004 to 2014, and they came back to power, what is there for the Congress to believe that this is not a viable route on the comeback trail?
Consider the three issues on which the Parliament has been deadlocked- the Lalitgate that involves the External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s recommendations to the British authorities to issue travel documents to the fallen IPL czar Lalit Modi, and the dealings of the Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhararaje Scindia with him as well as her affidavit in his favour to the British authorities with a stipulation that the Indian authorities should not be informed about it, and the admission-cum-recruitment Vyapam scam in which at least 48 persons have died and more than 2,000 have been arrested under the watch of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan. We can take a cue from the interesting hypothesis that Swaraj presented in her defense when she asked in the Lok Sabha: “Meri jagah agar Soniaji hoti to kya karti,marne ke liye chhod deti? (What would Sonia Gandhi have done if she had been in my place; left her to die?”) The argument can be extended to ask as to what the BJP would have done if the Congress leaders had been involved in similar situations. Would they not seek the resignations of the concerned leaders had they belonged to the Congress party? The available evidence shows that the BJP’s aggression would have been much more ferocious than that of the Congress party.
It is not that the Congress is not aware of the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would not be obliging them by asking the resignations of three BJP leaders even if there is no love lost between him and them in terms of personal political equations. But Modi is a leader with a macho image and he cannot be seen as succumbing to the pressure tactics of an opposition party that he mauled not less than 15 months ago in successive political battles. However, the answer to the political criticism mounted by the Congress does not lie in silence. There is a lot of merit in the Narasimha Rao style of “mauni baba” approach in which the problem is allowed to resolve by itself. There could be a hypothesis that the Congress would tire out and that the demand would lose steam. May be that would be the case as well. But the problem with this approach is that Modi’s strong point is that he beats his opponents by his verbal fire power and not through silence. Eloquence rather than silence has been his strength. Silence shows him as a weak leader, and the other ministers of his government do not help in lending some pregnant meanings to his quietude. An impression is created that he is silent because he has nothing to say, and in his case, there is an obverse inference that through this mode he is shielding the guilty.
The government’s ‘surrender’ on the Land Acquisition Bill may reflect the virtue of pragmatism but in Modi sarkar’s case, this is yet another sign of weakness. Indeed, the whole process makes it clear that the government’s efforts to draft a different law were not only ham-handed ab initio, but also a continued exercise in futility for all these months. This episode is the clearest public example of the self goals that the government has been scoring against itself. The absence of a land acquisition law in sync with the times has always been seen as a big hurdle in the process of accelerating equitable development amongst all stakeholders. The 2013 UPA law evolved after a long consultative process and it had included inputs from the BJP leaders as well. It got past the parliament only through BJP support. The rationale for changing the law without the government having any experience of working with it in different sectors could never be grasped even by the ideological parent of the Modi Sarkar-the Sangh Parivar. Under such circumstances, it was difficult for other segments to come on board. But the problem is that now, when there is a political consensus across the entire spectrum back in favour of 2013 law, the overall environment is not conducive for any legislative work.
Its handling of the Goods and Services Tax Constitutional Amendment is also saddled with similar infirmities. Even if the fact that the BJP chief ministers opposed this legislation when it was initiated by the Congress-led UPA government is side-stepped, this is a reform that has been long overdue. A better quality dialogue with all the sides would have eased matters considerably and the legislation could have seen the light of the day. The Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu is very fond of asserting that in a parliamentary democracy, the opposition has its say but the government has its way. By the same logic, if the government is not having its way, then the weakness lies with it. The numbers in the Rajya Sabha have always been fractious but the government should get its maths right on crucial issues. That skill has been missing for the last fifteen months.
