Bad Manners in the House

THE CURTAIN HAS descended on a particularly fractious Budget Session of Parliament, which began on March 13, with barely any business transacted in the second half. On March 24, Lok Sabha applied the guillotine, passing in a stroke the Budget allocations for 2023-24. Barring the financial proposals and the budget for Jammu and Kashmir, very few Bills were passed, some amid a din. The session is set to conclude several days before schedule in view of an implacable logjam between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress.

The bone of contention was BJP’s insistence that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi apologise for comments “denigrat­ing” India’s democracy on a visit to the UK. BJP latched onto Rahul’s remarks that the basic structure of India’s democracy was under attack, and this should concern the West as well. “It is not just going to play out in India and what you do about it is, of course, up to you. You must be aware of what is happen­ing in India—the idea of a democratic model is being attacked and threatened,” he said, accusing Western governments of being oblivious to alleged “democratic backsliding” in India.

A perfect storm awaited Rahul on his return to India in ear­ly March. BJP leaders had already ratcheted up an attack on him for speaking against India while abroad. Various parts of his wide-ranging comments, including his observation that the India-China border faceoff is similar to what is happening in Ukraine, became fodder for BJP. Determined to pin down the Congress leader, BJP stalled proceedings in Parliament, demanding an apology, an unusual instance of the ruling party pre­venting proceedings. This effective­ly diluted the opposition’s efforts to raise the Adani shares controversy and the group’s alleged proximity to BJP and instead put the spotlight on Congress. BJP was unrelenting, with party spokesperson Sambit Patra asserting: “Hum maafi le kar hi rahenge (We will not stop without an apology),” and labelling the Gandhi scion as a modern-day Mir Jafar—who courted lasting infamy for his treacherous role in the Battle of Plassey. It was evident BJP was not interested in settling the gridlock in Parliament when it had Congress on the mat.

Disruption of Parliament is a tactic all parties have em­ployed and its utility needs careful evaluation. Opposition parties frequently force adjournments to focus attention on is­sues critical of the government. Congress raised allegations of graft in the Rafale fighter deal during the Modi government’s first term and the opposition stalled work during the first half of the current Budget Session over the Adani controversy. During the second part of the United Progressive Alliance’s (UPA) tenure, an entire session was washed away due to BJP demanding a joint committee of Parliament on the 2G tele­com scandal, while the India Against Corruption agitation and the stir for the formation of Telangana were other reasons for disruptions. The 2G scandal and controversies over graft and inefficiency during the Delhi Commonwealth Games (CWG) and ‘coalgate’ hurt Congress, contributing to its defeat in the 2014 elections. On the other hand, Rahul Gandhi’s insistent allegations of graft in the Rafale deal fell flat and Prime Min­ister Narendra Modi won a second successive majority in 2019.

After its demoralising loss in 2014, the Congress leadership felt it was done in by parliamentary committees headed by BJP leaders who examined controver­sial government decisions. It felt BJP’s blockading of Parliament put UPA on the backfoot, allowing Modi to run away with the narrative. All of this and more led to the Congress brass demanding that party MPs heading committees like the Public Accounts Commit­tee (PAC) subject decisions of the Modi government to critical analysis just as had been the case when UPA was in office. But such committees reflect the balance and composition of Parlia­ment. With the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) MPs constituting more than half of most committees, Congress MPs found the going quite tough. Committee chairs need to work out a bare minimum consensus for reports to be adopted, and a unilateral approach—at the behest of their masters—ran into an NDA wall. Reports on decisions like demonetisation failed to generate the impact Congress had hoped for.

Disruption of Parliament, too, did not yield the anticipated results. While Congress pointed to BJP’s use and justification of the device, it ignored the contexts, such as the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) scathing report on 2G alloca­tions and the Supreme Court’s decision to scrap them. Or CAG’s report on inefficient and tainted allocation of coal blocks. A committee headed by former CAG VK Shunglu re­vealed the irregularities and financial loss to the Centre in the organising of the 2010 CWG. On the other hand, the Supreme Court upheld the Rafale deal and the CAG agreed that its cost, as compared to the contract under negotiation during the UPA years, was more advantageous to India.

Indeed, the Rafale contract was a welcome change from when routine corruption in defence deals and activities of Indian and foreign ‘middlemen’ led to India resembling a banana republic. All this was, however, lost on the Congress leadership and during a post-2019 results party meeting, seniors were accused of being half-hearted in taking up the Ra­fale issue while promoting their children in elections. Rahul’s letter resigning as party president laid the blame for the defeat on the alleged lack of a free press and judiciary, an opaque Elec­tion Commission and institutional capture by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). Any acknowledgement that he might have failed to read the public pulse was conspicuous by its absence. The Congress leadership remains convinced it was the victim of several conspiracies, effectively preventing an honest and purposeful introspection.

In seeking to pick up the democracy-under-threat refrain, Rahul is not on a very different track from other opposition parties which echo the same claim. Several opposition parties accuse the Modi government of using anti-corruption agen­cies in a partisan manner. Stung by anti-graft investigations, they have made common cause against BJP. The reports of foreign think-tanks and non-profits downscaling India’s democracy have found a ready resonance with a section of commentators and opponents of BJP in India. The war of narratives does present BJP with a significant challenge. But Rahul’s expansive and unfiltered remarks allowed BJP to turn the tables, slamming the Congress leader for being part of the “anti-national” toolkit. The references were deliberate, linking his India as a “union of states” formulation to political activism that questions India’s nationhood. Not surprisingly, other opposition parties were not enthused about coming to Congress’ rescue.

In a brief remark to the media, Rahul denied having made any anti-India comments and said he would like to speak in Parliament to present his case. He elaborated on the theme in a meeting of a parliamentary committee he is a member of as well. But this time round, BJP was not prepared to offer him a platform and negotiations to resolve the deadlock were doomed to fail.

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