Congress yields space to its new allies; incoherence of I.N.D.I.A fails to stem NDA’s hydra headed assault.
The raison d’être of the central leadership of Congress embracing its archrival Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), ignoring the chagrin of its state level leaders, was brought to naught when the Delhi Services Bill sailed through Parliament. The numbers game in Rajya Sabha, which Arvind Kejriwal sought to tweak by successfully cajoling the I.N.D.I.A. bandwagon to stand by AAP, went awry.
The fate of the No Confidence Motion in Lok Sabha was a foregone conclusion. The Opposition wilted even before the motion was put to vote. Perhaps accentuated by a brief appearance of Rahul Gandhi, who breezed in midway while Prime Minister Narendra Modi was replying, the movers of the No Trust move forfeited their parliamentary right to reply to the PM as the I.N.D.I.A squad had walked out, accentuating a voice vote dismissal of the motion.
NDA replied with orchestrated thunder to the “Charge of the Light Brigade” of incoherent I.N.D.I.A partners. Yes, the No Trust move brought the 26-party conglomerate together on the floor of Lok Sabha and even outside—the social media handles of these parties projected the speeches of leaders of partner parties apart from highlighting their own. But there was no orchestration during the debate. In sharp contrast the NDA defence was well-tuned. Opposition relied on subtle English diction; NDA replied in chaste Hindi. The national telecast of the proceedings was fully and properly utilised.
Narendra Modi’s 134-minute speech on 10 August (he surpassed Lal Bahadur Shastri’s 1964 record for the length of a PM’s reply to No Trust move) was the high point of the debate. While the intervention by Home Minister Amit Shah (132 minutes) on the previous day, combined with the dexterity with which he piloted the Delhi Services Bill in Rajya Sabha on the 7th (and in Lok Sabha previous week) showed him as an able parliamentarian. He sternly delivered his message with facts, figures and references to history of the subject. Amit Shah has been PM Modi’s trusted lieutenant from the Ahmedabad district committee of BJP since the mid-1980s. His tenure as party president from 2014 saw BJP grow to become the world’s largest political organisation. His management of elections is legendary. The past week saw the emergence of Parliamentarian Amit Shah.
BJP used its Union Ministers to give a report card not only since 2019, but for the past nine years. Opposition could not project an alternate vision while the Treasury benches utilised each minute allocated to them to propagate their vision and achievements. The No Trust debate became an opportunity for the government to gain the people’s trust. Opposition did not field any heavyweights who could counter the high decibel, perfectly orchestrated, defence by the Treasury benches.
Gaurav Gogoi, deputy leader of Congress in Lok Sabha, made a spirited opening. Other speakers from his party like Manish Tewari made an impressive intervention. And so did Farooq Abdullah (NC), Supriya Sule (NCP-Sharad), Mahua Moitra (TMC) and Asaduddin Owasi (AIMIM). Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, was denied the privilege of being a star speaker. Normally he ought to have moved the motion. Amit Shah chided Congress for this and asked Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi jokingly to allot Chowdhury time from the BJP’s slot. Adhir Ranjan did speak on the final day, but his comments against the PM were objected to by the ruling party and after the motion had been defeated by voice vote an unprecedented motion was moved by Joshi, suspending the leader of the largest Opposition party while his conduct was referred to the Privileges Committee. The lack of trust between the two sides of the House came into sharp relief. And that is not healthy for smooth functioning of parliamentary democracy.
Rahul Gandhi having been granted temporary reprieve by Supreme Court was back in Parliament. But his return did not take the House by storm. As has been in the case in the past, his priorities lay outside Parliament. He attended the three-day debate briefly on the second day—in his angry middle-aged man avatar. Delivered a soliloquy on Bharat Jodo Yatra and lounged into attacking the government for assault on Bharat Mata. Thereafter he went away to Rajasthan. Before departing he blew a kiss towards the Treasury benches, drawing flak from 21 lady MPs who lodged a sharp protest. He re-entered the debate for a brief period Prime Minister was in the 90th minute of his reply. After a while, at his bidding I.N.D.I.A. parties quietly trooped out, leaving the arena open to the Treasury benches, who thereafter went on to dismiss the No Confidence Motion by a voice vote.
Prime Minister’s appeal for peace in Manipur, the issue on which the Opposition had been harping since 20 July, came soon after the Opposition walked out. Had they been in the House they could have raised questions when the customary right of reply was given prior to the motion being put to vote.
Thirty years ago, on the first day of the Budget Session of 1993, the first to be held post the Ayodhya demolition on 6 December 1992, BJP members trooped out in solidarity with the party’s workers who had been demonstrating outside while police used water cannons to disperse them. While walking out, the BJP MPs shouted in unison “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan, Vande Mataram, Jai Sri Ram.” (This combined slogan has not been heard thereafter.) The impact of the Opposition MPs’ action in tandem with the street protest was unnerving for the government of P.V. Narasimha Rao. The lack of mobilisation of cadre outside while acting in unison in Parliament denied today’s Opposition’s walkout the sheen which had been grabbed by BJP three decades back.
A pathetic scene was witnessed in Rajya Sabha on 7 August. Nonagenarian former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh patiently waited on a wheel chair for the division bell to be sounded for voting on the Delhi Services Bill. Former Jharkhand CM Shibu Soren (JMM) and B.N. Singh of JD(U) too came to the House in their ill health as Opposition whip had been issued to defeat the legislation, which irked the AAP regime in Delhi. With BJD, YSRCP and TDP having announced their support to the government the numbers were clearly skewed in favour of Amit Shah’s legislation. Yet, as Congress central leadership had decided to play ball with AAP, Dr Manmohan Singh, who was the principal target of the Anna Hazare movement in whose womb AAP was conceived, had to follow Congress party whip and be present.
In his reply to Lok Sabha PM Modi referred to Opposition’s “Poverty of imagination”. As the nation moves towards 2024 I.N.D.I.A parties need to sharpen their focus.