Empty vessels making noise

Banging on metal plates and gongs, BJP chief Rajnath Singh and NDA MPs put up an entertaining tamasha outside Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Banging on metal plates and gongs, BJP chief Rajnath Singh and NDA MPs put up an entertaining tamasha outside Rashtrapati Bhavan on Monday. But surely, at a price tag of about Rs 2 crore — the amount of taxpayers’ money wasted because of the opening day of Parliament being adjourned — the show could have been cheaper. One is also left clueless as to what purpose the Opposition’s show of protest — purportedly against the issue of rising prices and terrorist strikes in Mumbai — served. The sudden decision to disrupt Question Hour at the Lok Sabha and the melodramatic submission of a memorandum to the President smacks of a nautanki that lacked any script. One could be forgiven for harbouring the cynical idea that the Opposition was prepared to disrupt the first day of Parliament in protest against the government’s inability to control bad weather, if need be.

HT Image

Rushing to the well of the House has become a standard ploy to halt Parliament proceedings. One is yet to fathom what compelled the BJP-led NDA to waste a day of Parliament. Surely, being in the business of parliamentary politics, it knows that arguments and issues of contention have a venue in such a system: the Parliament. The country needs an oppositional force. Democratic politics not only allows that, but insists on it. Unfortunately, the nominal Opposition that the nation has today seems to be bereft of ideas — barring the stoppage of Parliament, that is. The demand for an adjournment motion on the Mumbai blasts was made by the Opposition; it was admitted by the Speaker on Tuesday. In hindsight, it almost seems that the NDA was denied another opportunity to stall Parliament.

It is truly unfortunate that at a time when the nation and its polity need to tackle serious matters — whether it be security or price rise — the NDA has taken the god-forsaken route of playing to the gallery in the most knee-jerk manner. But the question that Opposition leaders with their gongs must ask themselves is: which gallery are they playing to?