Yet another session of Parliament is on the verge of being washed out. The Goods and Services Tax Bill, which was billed as a legislation that would boost India’s growth rate by as much as 2 per cent, has fallen by the wayside, as have many other bills. There is no accountability for those who wrecked the Winter Session as they did with the Monsoon Session, no sense of remorse and soul-searching for having worked against national interest.
Disruptions have become the order of the day, and while the BJP was largely to blame for paralysis in Parliament during the UPA regime, it is the Congress that is playing havoc under the BJP dispensation. The net result is that the country is suffering grievously and there is woeful lack of sensitivity to public good.
Parliamentary democracy has been mutilated to such an extent that there is utter disgust and exasperation building up in sensitive minds against how the edifice of democracy is giving way. Congress leaders are on record, saying it is the responsibility of the ruling party to run the two Houses. But what of an Opposition that sabotages and forces adjournments day in and day out?
This time, first it was the charge of vendetta politics arising from the National Herald case on which Congressmen agitated in the Well of the House. When the party began to be seen by people at large as being defiant of the Delhi High Court, which had found prima facie grounds to deny exemption from personal appearance in court to Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, the Congress began publicising that it was BJP’s vendetta that it was alluding to and it had no animus against the judiciary. To allege, as the Congress is doing, that the National Herald case is a BJP-inspired litigation or harassment by proxy by the government of the day is at once far-fetched and untenable.
BJP spokespersons pointed out that when the case was filed against the Gandhis, petitioner Subramanian Swamy was not even in that party (his Janata Party was a separate entity) and the BJP rode to power at the Centre 16 months later. The Congress grudgingly recognised it was rapidly losing public support because of its unconvincing arguments.
Then came the brazenly preposterous alibi that the boycott of Parliament was not because of the Herald case but due to other reasons like the Lalit Modi issue, the Vasundhara Raje connection with Lalit, and the allegedly anti-Dalit statement of Minister VK Singh.
Clearly, with the wily and politically savvy Sonia staying out of the limelight to give Rahul a place in the sun, the immature and blundering son gave the party many occasions to rue his virtual assumption of leadership.
As chance would have it, the issues that the Congress picked up as alibis to scuttle parliamentary proceedings were downright petty. Vyapam and the Lalit Modi shenanigans were old hat. Former army chief VK Singh’s indiscreet remarks on Dalits caused only a ripple. Rahul Gandhi’s protest over RSS hand in blocking his entry to an Assam temple was not borne out. Indeed, in short, the Parliament session was a damp squib.
The ruling dispensation also did not help matters with its rigidity and lack of a solution-finding approach. It could have endeavoured to pass GST through a joint session of Parliament, but chose not to. The posturing of the Congress-led Opposition was outrageous and that of the BJP-led treasury benches left much to be desired.
k.kamlendra@gmail.com
Kanwar is a former journalist