Politics of bluff & bluster

The Congress party’s failure brings up the question: Can it be said that we have an effective Opposition? The question demands an urgent answer because not only the Congress but also other Opposition parties have not looked beyond their nose on issues that have come their way, mostly courtesy, the media, and have not gone beyond their tendency to score a debating point.There is a related question that demands attention as well; it is whether the Opposition has stymied the Modi style

Sonia Gandhi, the Congress President, literally sprang a surprise this week by displaying an aggression, which is not associated with her. Both on the floor of Parliament and outside, she put the Modi government on notice that her party’s poor bench strength would not come in her way of leading the fight against BJP in general and Narendra Modi in particular.The way she marshalled her forces on the issues related to AP re-organization and on the land law was impressive even if we discount the sudden love of the Left for the Left of Centre Congress.

Sonia Gandhi and other Opposition leaders are also set to exploit the shenanigans of the Parivar hotheads, who appear to be increasingly uncomfortable with the approach of the NDA government and the homilies of their very own RSS chief on issues dear to them. A manifestation of their discomfiture is the outburst of Dr Subramanian Swamy that a mosque is not a religious place but just a building which can be demolished any time.

The maverick economist–politician, going by his track record, believes in the dictum that there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies in politics. Jayalalithaa has learnt about Swamism the hard way; they were two good friends at one time and today he is sparing no effort to nail her in a disproportionate assets case. Swamy was one of the loudest cheer leaders of Modi in the run-up to the Lok Sabha election and he remained on byte call duty afterwards too. How the Modi establishment manages to rein in, if not neutralize Swamism, will have a bearing on the course of events that are set to unfold.

All this, however, may not translate into ‘ache din’ for the Congress with the crown prince not in sight as yet, and the parliamentary tactics giving the party no more than what Arun Jaitley, the time-tested trouble shooter for the Prime Minister, terms as “a temporary sadistic thrill”. Walk outs, disruptions and lung power are a part of the armoury of whoever is on the Opposition benches in Parliament. The BJP did more or less exactly what the Congress is doing at present. From Manmohan Singh to Anand Sharma everyone who was anyone in the Congress hierarchy of the day used to taunt the saffron party that it had not reconciled to the 2004 defeat.

The difference between then and now is that then the opposition was willing to accommodate the treasury benches a wee bit and did not make an unnecessary show of its petulance. But this is exactly what the present day opposition is doing if we factor in its insistence for division on the Mines and Minerals Bill in the Rajya Sabha on Friday even when the writing on the wall was clear.

Consider the sequence of events. The TMC and the BJD declared their support to the Bill. The amendments moved by the Left parties were put to vote and were rejected by a wide margin. And Sharad Yadav, who is recovering from the battering for his misplaced enthusiasm to speak up against our fixation with the “Gora” skin and distaste for “saanvale women”, led his Janata amoeba to a noisy walkout.

The right course for the Congress in such circumstances was to hold back its fire for another day.But the party persisted with its demand for referring the bill back to a select committee and pressed for voting. By so doing, the party has denied itself a couple of brownie points. Frankly, one can see some symbolism in the report that came in as voting was in progress that the Dehradun-Varanasi Janata Express was derailed in Rae Bareli.

The Congress party’s failure brings up the question: Can it be said that we have an effective Opposition? The question demands an urgent answer because not only the Congress but also other Opposition parties have not looked beyond their nose on issues that have come their way, mostly courtesy, the media, and have not gone beyond their tendency to score a debating point. There is a related question that demands attention as well; it is whether the Opposition has stymied the Modi style. As I see it, the answer to this question is a resounding no. For valid reasons.

The BJP-led NDA government has literally breezed through the first part of the budget session with no bruises worth the name. Whatever tense moments it faced had come from allies – Shiv Sena, Telugu Desam and Raju Shetti of Mahashtra’s Swabhimani Paksha. Yes, the Modi managers did not have their way on the “Modified” Land Bill but honestly, they never hoped to do so, and are, indeed, prepared for a long haul on the Land issue. And their time-tested art of bluff and bluster created a smoke screen. The Congress walked into the smoke by allowing the likes of Jairam Ramesh to hold forth on obstructionism both as a strategy and an ideology.

The Karnataka- born Tamilian representing Andhra Pradesh in the Rajya Sabha may be a well-meaning egg head, and he may like his stamp to shine on the land law. Instead of saying “my bill or no bill”, the Congress should have engaged with the government and exposed it on the floor of the House. Now Sonia Gandhi appears to be putting in place amends with her offer to work with Anna Hazare, who has already hit the road with his anti-Modi Land Bill.

This is welcome news for the Congress cadres, who have been waiting patiently for the leadership to put their act together. Yet, they may be wondering whether Modi has scored a march again with his bait for an open debate; Well, there is nothing new in the offer; and it has been tossed around several times but this time no less than Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has invited Sonia and Anna for the debate and it coincided with Modi’s plans for a new “mann ki baat” on AIR with farmers.

(The writer, a Delhi-based senior journalist and South Asia analyst, can be reached at [email protected])