DM Monitoring
NEW DELHI: The best thing that has happened to Parliament after the Lok Sabha polls is that the opposition has found its long-lost voice. The budget session is witnessing a strange phenomenon unlike ever in the past decade.
After being in the dock since 2014, the opposition parties have become a spirited lot, much to the annoyance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.
The opposition parties are raring for a fight. The funny thing is that Modi and Shah are at their wit’s end on how to contain them.
The strategy to use the presiding officers to provide cover to the government was successful in the past two terms of the BJP, especially the previous one which got the dubious distinction of the largest-ever non-BJP members being suspended. Almost the entire opposition, barring a few, were targeted.
But the strategy has come to naught due to the character of the 18th Lok Sabha where the numbers speak a different story, one good for a healthy democracy. The opposition INDIA alliance is just a few short of BJP’s 240. Modi’s penchant for projecting that he is his boss like in the past 10 years is slowly but surely coming unstuck.
What is worse is that the ‘Gujarat model’ of suspending the entire opposition and getting the bills passed in a jiffy has crumbled without a trace. It is a massive shock that needs introspection from the BJP side and calls for a genuine ‘let us come closer and work together’. It is unlikely to happen under Modi who talks big on democracy but treats his detractors almost as ‘termites’.
The crutches provided by Chandrababu Naidu and Nitish Kumar are there but the two NDA leaders are exploiting the Modi 3.0 government to the full is clear from the Budget 2024-25, which the opposition is alleging has given favourable treatment to Andhra and Bihar at the cost of other states including Uttar Pradesh and Assembly election bound states like Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Delhi. This is going to be a key plank of the opposition in the poll-bound states to put the BJP on the defensive. The difference between Modi’s earlier governments and Modi 3.0 is becoming starker by the day despite the JDU leader and Union Minister Lalan Singh insisting that there is a ‘Fevicol bond’ among the NDA allies.
What happens a day after is that Singh’s boss and party chief Nitish Kumar, the Bihar chief Minister, remains absent at the crucial meeting of the NITI Aayog amid a virtual boycott by the opposition chief ministers. Can it by any stretch of imagination be called a ‘Fevicol bond’?
Reports had it that recently the ED raided one of the most powerful bureaucrats in Bihar known to be close to Kumar, which has sent shockwaves in political circles.
The trouble for the new government is growing by the day if one follows the proceedings of parliament. There is a crop of new and young leaders and some not too new and young, who have developed the dash and daring to put the government on the mat, in their way.
Suddenly, the spring in the step of the opposition has brought the BJP on the back foot. Modi’s vicious attacks on the opposition in every which way in the past decade have made them strong and resilient. The ‘daro mat’ message has sunk in.
The consistent attack from the opposition is not only a novelty for the BJP top brass but also the failure of the faithful to rise to the occasion in equal measure.
What is worse for Modi and Shah is that the one whom they dubbed as “Pappu” in the most controversial campaign against any opposition leader in independent India, has come to occupy the chair of the Leader of the Opposition and Modi-Shah are forced to listen to him whenever he dims fit to speak.
The ruling side must be lamenting the loss of Smriti Irani in the Lok Sabha polls and that too from one who she had herself dismissed as a “clerk” of the Gandhi family.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla is not amused by the behaviour of the opposition, which is neither a pliant one nor afraid to call a spade a spade. He can do precious little is the impression so far.
The warnings that an attack on the Chair would not be tolerated show the treasury benches’ unease. The controversial Birla may be the second presiding officer to get a second term but has often found himself in a spot in dealing with the opposition this time.
Modi-Shah are not the ones to keep quiet; therefore, the session ahead as also the next session would reveal what is in their mind.
The fact is that Modi-Shah are on a slippery slope in the political field too, given the developments in Uttar Pradesh where a chief minister, promoted by the Sangh Parivar as the poster boy of Hindutva, looks defiant in the wake of the BJP’s Waterloo in the most crucial state.
Most of the media, kept pliant in various ways, is also seeking to adjust to the new realities when the ‘strong leader’ is not that strong, which is adding more to the anxiety of the ruling dispensation.
But, make no mistake. The fact that Modi-Shah are not going to give any quarter to the opposition is clear from the way they have made the appointments in key posts dealing with the non-BJP parties and the media.
Birla’s second term as the Lok Sabha Speaker does not inspire confidence among the opposition is becoming clear from the day-to-day proceedings of the House. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju is known as the PM’s favourite.
A few years back, it looked like that as the then Law and Justice Minister, Rijiju’s role was to attack the Judiciary. Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwin Vaishnaw is also the Railway Minister and handles some other key portfolios. He has survived despite several mishaps on the Railways speaks of his closeness with the PM.
Modi’s blue-eyed boy is essentially a bureaucrat and is known to carry out only the PM’s vision. No one has heard in recent days or years that Modi’s vision of media has changed.
To expect a ‘glasnost’ or ‘perestroika’ from Modi is like thinking of milching a bull.
