Parliament logjam expected: 4 reasons to blame BJP
Parliament's winter session would be commencing on November 26, and the biggest fear is obvious - will it be a total wash out like the monsoon session? The two houses meet close on the heels of the Bihar Assembly elections which saw a humiliating defeat of the ruling BJP at the hands of Congress-RJD-JD(U) combine's Mahagathbandhan. The election witnessed acrimony at its peak between the BJP-led NDA and Mahagathbandhan leaders. Emboldened by the win, the three Mahagathbandhan parties will now seek to corner the treasury benches and embarrass them. The Congress, RJD and JD(U) together have 50 (44, four and two respectively) of the 543 Lok Sabha seats and 80 (67, one and 12 respectively) of the 242 Rajya Sabha seats - enough to block Parliament proceedings. In such a scenario, it will be a tall order for the BJP to ensure smooth functioning of Parliament. These are the reasons the BJP will be blamed if the winter session meets the same fate as the monsoon session:
1. Arrogance
Even 18 months after the Lok Sabha election, the BJP leaders have yet to overcome their arrogance. They should have overcome it long back and shown grace. However, reminding the Congress of winning just 44 seats against its 282 too often spoils any chance of rapprochement between the two parties. The usual controversial statements by members like Yogi Adityanath and Sakshi Maharaj, and ministers like Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti and Giriraj Singh only vitiate the atmosphere and the Opposition gets an opportunity to stall Parliament. For a change, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah should ensure that the party members display humility and not utter a single controversial statement, whether Parliament is in session or not. If they fail to rein in the motormouths, the winter session may also end without transacting any meaningful business.
2. Reaching out to the Opposition
On November 18, finance minister Arun Jaitley met Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi in the capital. Reports said Jaitley went to Rahul's residence in the capital to invite the Congress president and vice president for his daughter's wedding scheduled to take place next month. Earlier this month, the finance minister had said that he was willing to reach out to any Opposition leader for the passage of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill. Just two days ago (on November 16), Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan met Sonia and her daughter Priyanka. It was also described as a private meeting to fulfil the wish of the speaker's granddaughter to meet Priyanka.
The two meetings may indeed be private but they certainly will help thaw the ice between the two traditionally rival parties. In the same spirit of reaching out to the Opposition leaders, the government should embark on more such meetings on an official level to create an atmosphere conducive to smooth functioning of Parliament.
However, if the past is any indication, the BJP has not shown any magnanimity towards the Opposition. Instead, it has been returning fire at them. This leaves little scope for the Opposition to recalibrate their stand and appear accommodative to the concerns of the ruling dispensation. When the BJP was in the Opposition, Modi's predecessor Manmohan Singh would invite senior BJP leaders like LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj (the then leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha), Jaitley (the then leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha) and others at the prime minister's official residence at 7, Racecourse Road to break the deadlock in Parliament. Modi has not yet emulated this practice which can help dissipate the heat the BJP is facing from the Opposition.
3. Floor management
The BJP needs to learn a lot from the UPA government. When the Lok Sabha speaker suspended 25 MPs in the monsoon session for stalling House proceedings, Sonia termed it "murder of democracy" with the remaining of the 44 party MPs also boycotting the lower House. They were joined by several other Opposition MPs. This only gave undue political mileage to the Congress.
Compared with UPA-2, the floor management of the Modi government leaves much to be desired. UPA-2 was a minority government running with outside support of parties like the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party. It was rocked by huge scams like the 2G spectrum, coal block allocation, Commonwealth Games and Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society scams, and controversies involving ministers like Pawan Bansal and Ashwani Kumar. The UPA-2 also had to contend with a formidable Opposition in the BJP which had 116 MPs in the Lok Sabha as compared with just 44 of the Congress in the present Lok Sabha. In spite of all these hurdles, the productivity of the Lok Sabha was decent if not enviable, as it passed 165 of the 222 Bills introduced in five years. The NDA government should stop its confrontationist approach and adopt a more conciliatory attitude towards the Opposition members.
4. Modi's 'maun vrat'
The prime minister should shed his selective silence in Parliament at least. He has so far not uttered a word over the controversial issues involving external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje and Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. He did not speak even when Parliament debated, during the monsoon session, Swaraj's alleged links with former IPL boss Lalit Modi. He skipped the debate and left it to Jaitley, parliamentary affairs minister Venkaiah Naidu and Swaraj herself to deal with the issue. This silence goes against Modi who would attack Manmohan for maintaining a studied silence over the numerous scams and controversies dogging the Congress-led UPA 2.
The Opposition has already sent a notice for discussion on growing "intolerance" during the upcoming session and have demanded a reply from Modi. It would be in the interest of parliamentary democracy if the prime minister shoulders this responsibility instead of passing the buck to any of his ministerial colleagues. Otherwise, not only the government, but also the nation would stand to lose.