My Disruption Is Democracy

The boot has come to be very firmly on the other foot. Her own words—”Not allowing Parliament (to function) is also a form of democracy”—have come back to haunt Union external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj. Undeterred by the outrage on treasury benches and unfazed by warnings from the Speaker, Congress MPs led others in raising slogans like “PM chuppi todo” and “Modiji 56-inch dikhao/Sushma, Raje ko turant hatao”.

“The BJP is getting a taste of its own medicine,” quips a Delhi University professor. Never mind the reports that `27 crore has been lost in the disruption of the last three days. Several Congressmen gleefully recall how Jaitley, then leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, justified disruption of parliamentary proceedings by the BJP as a legitimate tactic in articles and blogs he wrote. “When we disrupted Par­lia­ment three years back on the 2G scam, the telecom sector was cleaned. Now the country is faced by the issue of how to clean up the entire process of allocation of resources,” he had said, justifying the demand for the resignation of Manmohan Singh as prime minister over the coal scam. Now the finance minister is on the offensive, saying, “The Opposition’s weak on argument, strong on disruption.” 

“There is no disruption at all,” says Anand Sharma, deputy LOP in the Rajya Sabha. “The BJP is not willing to fix accountability and the silence of the prime minister for seven weeks has made it complacent. He is protecting those who are accused. The noise in Parliament is as per past precedent.”

Congress MPs in both Houses demanded that just as Ashwani Kumar and Pawan Bansal had to resign first despite having violated no law, Sushma too must first resign on the question of propriety before a discussion could take place. “This monsoon session is a short, three-week one and the government has put very little business on the table. But when they were in Opposition, the BJP disrupted far more serious business and far longer sessions,” says a Congress leader, on condition of anonymity.

If L.K. Advani could offer to resign on the Jain hawala case until his name was cleared or if George Fernandes could offer to step down because of allegations in a media report and if BJP could disrupt Parliament for two months over 2G, why shouldn’t the Opposition demand the foreign minister’s resignation, asks K.C. Tyagi of the JD(U).

“Why is Sushma saying she will reveal the name of a Congress leader who lobbied her for a diplomatic passport for a coal scam accused,” asks the CPI(M)’s Nilotpal Basu. “Can two wrongs right a wrong?”

The Congress believes the logjam is making a dent on the carefully cultivated image of the BJP and the prime minister as crusaders against corruption. Congress leaders are convinced that Narendra Modi will choose his time to drop Sushma. “Just before the next session, he might tell the RSS he had backed her to the hilt but it was time for damage control,” says a Congress leader confidently. “The RSS would then ask her to accept ano­ther portfolio or return to the organisation.”

While “non-political” MPs in the party like Shashi Tharoor and M.S. Gill are uncomfortable with Congress strategy and believe it is unsustainable, the more hard-boiled politicians believe the party is conforming to the culture of protests and disruption in politics. They remain unfazed by criticisms by sociologists like Shiv Visvanathan that the party stands to gain little by stalling Parliament. “It is a temporary logjam. Eventually the law will take its own course,” says Visvanathan. He believes the party would have come across as a more responsible Opp­osition had it agreed to discussing the issues first.

Congress leaders disagree. “This government is not amenable to dialogue or discussion,” a Congress leader firmly told Outlook. “It is their way or the highway. We have no option but to mobilise people and resort to agitations to be heard.”