First session of 18th Lok Sabha a let down for Narendra Modi
By Sushil Kutty
Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi addresses the Prime Minister of India ‘Narendra Modi’ sans ‘Prime Minister’ and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has started referring to Rahul Gandhi as ‘Balak Buddhi’. The mutual respect shown is extraordinary. If ‘Sansad TV’ was popular TV, children would be learning “show respect to each other,” in the most extraordinary setting, India’s Parliament! Even otherwise India’s children are living in extraordinary times.
Prime Minister Modi’s contempt for LoP Rahul Gandhi is extraordinary. Modi had sworn to make India “Congress Mukt” in his first term itself. And with the battle-cry “Abki baar 400 paar”, there was every chance for a “Congress Mukt Bharat”. However, Modi’s slogan perished in electoral dust and Rahul Gandhi made sure ‘Congress Mukt Bharat’ died its own death. Rahul Gandhi is now the ‘Leader of Opposition’ and Rahul Gandhi as LoP is a different ball game altogether as the BJP’s Lok Sabha back-benchers are coming to realize.
When Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was LoP he made no impression even when he was on his feet to make a telling intervention. BJP back-benchers made fun of him, mostly. Not that Congress front-benchers went on their knees to show respect. Today, after his loss to erstwhile cricketer Yusuf Pathan, the memory of LoP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is fast fading and nobody in the Congress is mourning.
That being said, comparing LoP Rahul Gandhi with LoP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is like comparing apples and oranges. This, when Rahul Gandhi happens to be the apple of the Congress eye. Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi were in the Visitor’s Gallery when LoP Rahul Gandhi stood up to deliver his first LoP speech. People shouldn’t forget that Rahul Gandhi was born to step into Rajiv Gandhi’s shoes , it doesn’t matter how many Modi-terms are in between!
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has many reasons to feel let down. Among them is the realization that he cannot remember ‘Congress Mukt Bharat’. All his cronies too have forgotten. That ‘Congress Mukt Bharat’ has slipped out of the BJP IT Cell’s vocabulary is a testament to the resilience of the Grand Old Party, which has withstood more debacles than Modi has in his life so far. Modi’s dream of ‘Congress Mukt Bharat’ is dead in the water.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot ever again use ‘Congress Mukt Bharat’ to embarrass the Congress and its ‘first family’. The Prime Minister in his ‘Motion of Thanks’ speech talked of the ‘ecosystem’ and what was in store for the ‘ecosystem’ in his third and final term as Prime Minister. For somebody who couldn’t do zilch to the ‘ecosystem’ in his first and second terms, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was talking big and mighty.
The ‘ecosystem’ Modi spoke of has a number of elements, which includes the entrenched bureaucracy. The rules and regulations and the legal system as it stands, also. The Supreme Court of India is also part of the ‘ecosystem’ that PM Modi wants to ‘Ukhaad’ in Sanjay Raut’s language. This when Prime Minister Narendra Modi isn’t on sure foot, himself!
What can a lame-luck third time Prime Minister do to the ecosystem? Former US President Donald Trump spoke of ‘draining the swamp’. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had two chances to rid India of its version of the Washington Swamp, but Modi never once mentioned ‘ecosystem’ in his first and second terms. Modi broke several promises but this one he never even spoke about.
It is only when somebody is down and out that he talks big. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is such a person. He knows he is vulnerable from head to toe and his toehold on power could slip off the brink at any moment on any day of the next five years. Fact is, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot touch the ‘ecosystem’. The current Prime Minister of India is on a very weak footing and the hoi polloi, the ordinary citizen living in extraordinary times, is aware.
Somebody in Parliament should ask Modi how he intends to dismantle the ecosystem, pray tell? Surely, his hold on India’s abused institutions has slipped. The brute majority of 303 seats is no longer there. Then, he was basking in the glow of international limelight, wooing world leaders who were kowtowing to him because India was a “huge market” to tap. Some of those world leaders went down on their knees and one of them called Modi “Boss”.
The global adulation went to his head and he never spoke of an ecosystem to mend or dismantle. Today, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi warns of dealing with the ‘ecosystem’, he sounds intellectually dishonest and he can only be “Trusted Like A fox”, which happens to be the title of a James Hadley Chase novel. Hadley Chase, if he was alive today, would have written a book on Narendra Modi with all the ‘masala’ available on Modi’s life. (IPA Service)