By Patricia Mukhim
The Parliament of India has a duty to perform. It has to pass laws and acts for governing the country more efficiently and also for holding the government accountable. The role of the opposition is not to disrupt but to bring to the fore acts of omission and commission of the government. But today the niceties of parliamentary democracy have been sabotaged. Politics has sunk to such a nadir that the people of India now need to take action. MPs of the Congress Party particularly Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi continues to behave in an infantile manner. His recent allegations that he was prevented from entering the Barpeta Satra – a 16th century Vaishnavite monastery – has been refuted by those who run the place. It is an insidious move at politicising religion – an allegation that is usually slapped on the BJP/RSS. Between Rahul Gandhi and Tarun Gogoi one is not too sure of who is (mis)leading whom. Gogoi is a desperado. His eccentricities come across very clearly on television. The Gogoi of yore who carried himself with dignity as a mature statesman is now in the past. Gogoi’s body language is offensive. He believes that by politicising the Satra visit he has given the Congress a stick to beat the BJP with because that is what is happening now in the Rajya Sabha. The Congress has been disrupting parliament on the Delhi High Court summons to Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi on The National Herald case which points to some financial misdemeanours. Why should the National Herald case be dragged to Parliament, is the question. Some citizens have floated an online petition through Change.org asking for signatures to protest this needless disruption of parliamentary proceedings.
Indeed this time too the Congress Party can be credited for yet another washed out Parliament session. Yet again tax payers’ money has gone down the drain. This has provoked Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley to come out with a statement that important legislations would now have to take the executive route. Not all legislations can be said to be politically tinged. And if political parties have differences or objections to certain proposed legislations, then Parliament is the place to iron out those differences. But parliament disruptions are now a new tool to waylay the Government. Perhaps a constitutional amendment is in place to ensure that parliament is able to carry out its duties. We rave and rant when the judiciary enters the legislative and executive domain but when both have failed there has to be some institutional mechanism to correct the system. If parliament fails to conduct business and the political parties that are elected to bring the peoples’ issues before the peoples’ court behave instead in a disruptive manner what sort of democracy can we expect in this country? Ordinances are essentially executive orders that need to be ratified by the legislature within the next six months or whenever the next parliament session is on. It is certainly not the best and most democratic route but government business cannot be stalled indefinitely simply because political parties play their partisan games in parliament. As if the games they play outside parliament are not enough!
Rahul Gandhi’s allegations against the burha satriya of the Barpeta Satra need to be tested against the latter’s statement. He claims to have waited for over four hours to receive the Congress leader but Rahul G by-passed the place and took a different route. The burha satriya staunchly denies that there was any opposition or demonstration to prevent Rahul Gandhi as alleged. He says he was at the satra gate to receive Rahul G along with other Congress bigwigs. So why did RG lie to media persons outside Parliament that he was prevented by the RSS from entering the Barpeta monastery when he took out a padayatra in that vicinity? The RSS has naturally vehemently criticised Rahul Gandhi’s infantile reactions. But this matter cannot be put to rest quite so easily. The BJP/RSS is a natural scapegoat for anything connected with religious disharmony. This is a classic case of giving a dog a bad name and hanging him. But that is not to say that the RSS is without guile. The group is trying to establish a foothold across the North East. It is important for those running the satras and other temples to keep those places outside the ugly complexities of partisan politics.
The second allegation of the Congress and another excuse to disrupt Parliament is that the Arunachal Pradesh Governor, JP Rajkhowa is trying to destabilise the Congress-led Government in the State. The Congress even knocked on the doors of Rashtrapati Bhavan to make their grouse known to the President. This is becoming the normal route taken by Sonia Gandhi and her cohorts in recent times. But the story unfolding in Arunachal Pradesh is something else. It is not uncommon for MLAs in that state to switch political sides at the drop of a hat. In 1996 54 MLAs walked out of the Congress led by Gegong Apang, who ruled Arunachal Pradesh like his fiefdom. Apang formed the Arunachal Congress which aligned with the BJP. At the time only 4 members remained in the opposition. In the present case, trouble has been brewing for the last six months when 11 dissident Congressmen wanted a change of leadership. They approached the All India Congress Committee which refused to give then a hearing and stubbornly resisted their demand but the rebels were unrelenting. The rebel MLAs then wanted an impeachment motion against Assembly Speaker Nabam Rebia who was seen as Tuki’s man. There was an impasse and the Governor had to advance the assembly session to December 16, from January 14. But in what is seen as an open confrontation with the Governor, something that normally does not happen in the benign North Eastern states, Nabam Tuki told Rajkhowa to recall the December 9 order advancing the Assembly session. The Governor in turn was compelled to call the session in the light of impeachment motion against the Assembly Speaker Rebia.
Again in an unprecedented move the 11 MLAs aligned to Tuki raved and ranted against the Governor and even used unparliamentary language. They threatened to disrupt the Assembly session and to restrain the Governor from attending it. The Speaker, Rebia ordered the locking of the Assembly gates. Hence the session had to be conducted in a community hall where 33 of 60 MLAs passed a unanimous resolution to impeach speaker the Speaker Nabam Rebia. The session was chaired by Deputy Speaker TN Thondok while the Leader of Opposition Tamiyo Taga moved the impeachment resolution which was unanimously adopted.
Dissidence among Congress MLAs and demands for leadership change in Congress-ruled states are endemic. Arunachal Pradesh is not the only example. Meghalaya has seen many such circuses when MLAs would park themselves at Delhi and seek to meet Sonia Gandhi to get her blessings to form a new Government with a new CM. In 2012 Chief Minister, JD Rymbai who had a clean track record and who set up roadblocks for about 14 cement companies which wanted to set up shop in Meghalaya, because he was concerned about environmental hazards, was summoned by Sonia Gandhi to Delhi. After listening to JD Rymbai explaining his stand the lady simply looked him straight in the eye and said, “Step down. Let Lapang take over as CM.” And that was it! He had to step down. At the time Congress was heading for elections in UP and needed loads of money. The cement companies were ready to pay money upfront. Hence when a political party that has played all the dirty tricks in the world acts like an injured party and takes its battles to the President, we as citizens should take the drama with a pinch of salt. Period.