April 19, 2024

What kind of politics are we witnessing in our country?

The main opposition, the Congress, has put in its objections in all major reform bills that the present government wants to bring. That is par for the course. The Congress is entitled to have a different view on the subject. It can ask for discussion, debate and finally amendments. When all else fails, it can resort to voting against the bill, absenting or even walking out of the parliament to register its protest.

Instead, what is the Congress doing?

It is asking the government to ensure that all ‘tainted’ ministers at the Centre as well as in several states are removed from their posts if it wants the bills to be passed? Sonia Gandhi has categorically said that there will be no debate in parliament till the resignation of these ministers.

What kind of blackmail politics is this?

The objections the Congress has against provisions of the Land Bill, for instance, are based on the premise that it is anti-farmer. How will the bill become pro-farmer or even neutral if say, Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje resign? How will the Congress explain to the people why it changed its stand without getting the ‘objectionable’ clauses removed?

Opposition parties’ objections to any proposed law the government wants to introduce is always based on their reading of the manner in which the proposed law will affect the lives of the people. The Congress has maintained that the government will take away the land of poor farmers without their consent and at a very low price and hand it over to big industrialists. If this is at all true, and if the Congress really thinks it to be true, how is this situation going to change with the resignation of a few BJP ministers? How will Congress cooperate in passing the bill (and other bills) after the ‘tainted’ ministers resign?

The correct way is to separate the two. Keep up the pressure on the government to make the ‘tainted’ ministers resign. Simultaneously, pressurize it to discuss, debate, amend and suitably alter the proposed bill so that they can be passed unanimously. By mixing the two, the opposition is being anti-people. The first is purely a political matter, to be handled politically. The second is a legislative matter and has to be taken up in Parliament. The people do not send their representatives to the august body to indulge in all kind of shameful acts. The Congress is taking advantage of its majority in the Rajya Sabha to blackmail the government. But this is wrong and will hurt the economy.