Pots and kettles
The extended winter session of the 15th Parliament, expected to be the last before a general election, has been adjourning in chaos every day by obstructive tactics of MPs opposed to dividing Andhra Pradesh into Telangana and Seemandhra, since it began sitting on February 5. But scenes of unprecedented behaviour in the Lok Sabha on Thursday landing a few MPs in hospital, damaging furniture and equipment and causing 17 MPs to be suspended have left MPs across the aisles exasperated and people around the country appalled. The nation awaits Parliament to resume on Monday with the question: whether any of the well-meaning bills, such as those to support the anti-corruption measures of the Lokpal and a citizen’s charter on delivery of services, which the Congress-led government wants to claim credit for, will get cleared. It’s a pot-calling-the-kettle-black situation, even within party ranks, for the way things have played out in Parliament and in AP dogged by bandhs.
When Mallikarjuna Kharge read what he could of the railway budget on Wednesday and when Sushilkumar Shinde rose to present the AP bifurcation bill, a few Congress MPs shielded them from Andhra MPs agitating menacingly with placards. Some played guards to Speaker Meira Kumar while protectors encountered protestors. Floor management which is the primary responsibility of the ruling party—through the parliamentary affairs minister—and of parties through their whips—being done this way was a misstep. Maintaining order in the House is the responsibility of the presiding officer, the Speaker. Her inability to wield her power including the use of marshalls, without fear or favour was a serious lapse. The utter disregard for party discipline and parliamentary decorum that has been allowed to go unchecked and unpunished is what led to the mayhem, highlighted by the pepper spraying on Thursday. All of which raises the question, why.
It is a combination of political dishonesty and lack of self esteem. The ruling coalition has become easy game for everyone; its moral authority eroded by the way it dealt with scandal after scandal, that anything it says or attempts to do is suspect to the opposition parties. All the more, when it is so to its own ranks as the Telangana saga shows. This plight helps opposition parties to play games and look innocent. The BJP, which reiterates support for Telangana, says it will back the bill when the house is brought to order, knowing any such effort is undermined by Congress MPs. Left parties, Trinamool and others which want to challenge both major parties as an electoral front, care little for pending bills. Even the Aam Admi Party, is watching the drama with one of its own in the Delhi Assembly to snare the BJP and Congress over the Jan Lokpal bill and open its account in the upcoming parliamentary poll.
Moral rectitude may sound too idealistic in politics. But as politics is part of life, even parties need honesty and integrity to be respected. The choice of candidates is where it is put to test. The re-enactment of the Miltonian allegory of Pandemonium now is a call to voters who feel all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, to redeem values in democracy. If MPs assert they are expressing the will of their electors in the way they behave, the chance is at hand to show how true that is to parties smacking their lips at opinion polls. Dignity of the Parliament reflects the dignity of the electors in a democracy. That’s not to be fed with salt and pepper to the devil.
If MPs assert they are expressing the will of their electors in the way they behave, the chance is at hand to show how true that is to parties smacking their lips at opinion polls. Dignity of the Parliament reflects the dignity of the electors in a democracy. That’s not to be fed with salt and pepper to the devil
