The Hindu Business Line : NDA's boycott `tamasha'

THERE is little doubt that by boycotting all parliamentary committees (including the all-important standing committees), the Opposition will only be rendering itself enfeebled in the the job of keeping the UPA Government on its toes.

How this will help the cause of the NDA, politically and in any other way, remains a mystery to the lay public, which would certainly have preferred to see the Opposition keep strict vigil on the working of the Congress-led UPA regime.

Indeed, the NDA has made its stand on the issue indefensible by linking it to, among other things, an apology by the ruling regime on a statement of "condemnation" — of the Opposition's behaviour vis-à-vis the Speaker, Mr Somnath Chatterjee — made by the Defence Minister and Leader of the Treasury Benches, Mr Pranab Mukherjee.

Among the other issues cited by the NDA are the presence of "tainted" people in the UPA Ministry, the removal of four Governors appointed by the Vajpayee regime, and the Shibu Soren case.

Clearly, the entire NDA initiative here is political, with which there can be no quarrel. But when one of the casualties of the dispute is "governance" itself in the shape of MPs keeping a tab on what individual Ministries are doing or not, it is more than apparent that the NDA strategy here has gone against the interests of the nation.

One of the consequences of the NDA's decision is that the Opposition will not accept the chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee, the "most prestigious and powerful of all committees".

This apart (as reported in The Hindu) "the main Opposition parties of the NDA will not be represented in the standing committees which meet during the parliamentary recess, which is on now till August 16, to make a detailed examination of the demands for grants to individual Ministries".

In fact, the Defence Minister had even criticised the former Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, when discussing the reinduction of Mr George Fernandes into his Cabinet when the investigation into the Tehelka affair was on.

Mr Mukherjee had said: "His (Mr Fernandes') reinduction when a court of inquiry was pending was highly improper. I would say even the former Prime Minister had indulged in impropriety by reinducting him into the Ministry."

Such a charge will be strongly challenged by the NDA because it involves no less a person than Mr Vajpayee himself. But to stall the work of Parliament, especially work which relates to MPs keeping watch over what the Government of the day is doing, simply cannot be justified on any ground whatever.

The central point is that the NDA should have the humility to accept the fact that it lost the last Lok Sabha elections, the most important inference vis-à-vis the defeat being that the nation was not happy at the way the Government was being run under Mr Vajpayee.

Mr Advani and his colleagues would have done the right thing — from the point of view of the national interest — if they had redoubled their efforts in maintaining vigil on the UPA regime's governance of the country instead of having recourse to the negative attitude of stalling work.

Ranabir Ray Choudhury