Sometime before the Lok Sabha election results were announced last year, a few reporters were exchanging notes at the Congress headquarters when Kapil Sibal strode in. Pulling a chair next to me, he declared: “I won’t spare these people [Narendra Modi]. I will fight them in Parliament if I win, or outside if I lose which is most likely.” But in the months that followed, the spirited lawyer’s fervour was submerged by his party’s collective despair. The Congress had lost the will to fight.
Cut to earlier this week, the eve of the monsoon session of Parliament. Sibal, this time, was seated at the podium in the AICC briefing room to address a press conference. He was inspired, excited and, after a long time, seemed to be having fun. “You want to know what the Government should do about the US Justice Department report on bribes paid to Indian politicians? I’ll tell you — Modi should call his friend ‘Barack’. He should get all the documents he wants. After all, they are friends. On first name terms,” he said sarcastically.
It is not just Sibal. Almost all his colleagues — Anand Sharma, Salman Khurshid, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Jairam Ramesh, even the once reticent P Chidambaram — are readying for a fight. They are commenting in the editorial pages of newspapers, addressing press conferences, tweeting, posting on Facebook and, yes, being their most entertaining selves in off-record conversations. It is almost as if the last 14 months did not happen.
Sample a few darts from Chidambaram on the day of the launch of ‘Skill India’. “National Skill Development Mission will be re-launched. I repeat, re-launched by the PM under a new name. Should we applaud?” Chidambaram then said that the mission was originally launched in August 2010 and its flagship scheme, STAR, in August 2013. He added that 35 lakh persons have already been trained under the programme. “A successful mission is being re-launched. Tomorrow will be ‘Achche Din’!” he quipped.
Impossible as it may seem, the credit for this change in atmospherics goes to Rahul Gandhi. Since his two-month sabbatical in the middle of the budget session, the Congress vice-president’s drive to infuse a fighting spirit into his somnolent party is slowly bearing fruit. After a long time, the principal opposition party is setting the agenda for discussion and debate in Parliament.
Gloves off
A spate of corruption scandals against prominent BJP leaders — Sushma Swaraj, Vasundhara Raje, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Raman Singh — have come in handy at a most opportune time. More importantly, the Congress has shed its inclination towards understatement — associated with the reserve and diffidence of Manmohan Singh and party president Sonia Gandhi. Rahul Gandhi is showing a surprising talent for martial arts in politics.
Ever ready for a bout, the BJP entered the arena with all guns blazing, seemingly free of the constraints of being in power. Although the formidable rabble-rousing skills of the Prime Minister have not yet been on full display, he has decidedly turned on the heat, firing the first salvo at his pet targets -- the Gandhis. After about a fortnight of hectoring by the Congress, Modi sounded the bugle at his friend and finance minister Arun Jaitley’s father-in-law’s memorial function last week in Jammu with his trademark comment on the “son-in-law”. Thanks to him, this reference is more synonymous these days with Priyanka Gandhi’s husband Robert Vadra than Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya. This was followed by brazening out the Congress’s accusations and the media onslaught while simultaneously mounting a counter-offensive targeting the Opposition leaders.
Accordingly, the BJP is unearthing more skeletons in the Congress’s closet while its floor managers are at their combative best in Parliament. Scam for a scam is the motto. Given the BJP’s impulse for aggression, the counter-offensive is no less trenchant than the newfound belligerence of the Congress’s strategy. And the Gandhis make for a pretty target.
“Rahul Gandhi says he will not allow even an inch of farmland to be acquired. I wonder which land he was referring to — the 3,000 bighas that his brother-in-law stole in Rajasthan, or the thousands of acres he has acquired in Haryana and Himachal Pradesh?” said BJP spokesperson and newly-elected Rajya Sabha MP MJ Akbar. His target was not Rahul Gandhi or Robert Vadra but the less-glamorous former chief minister of Goa Digambar Kamat. Kamat is at the helm of one of the new scandals the BJP is keen to rake up. It follows from a US Justice Department report that indicted a New Jersey-based construction management firm, Louis Berger, that paid bribes to win contracts in Goa and Assam, both states ruled by the Congress. The party also promises more “revelations” about chief ministers in Congress-ruled states — Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Assam et al.
New game plan
The initial election euphoria dulled the BJP’s reflexes in the past year. Even a routine activity like holding media briefings had been abandoned in the first three Parliament sessions after Modi was sworn in as PM. But the party is clearly aware of the need for a different approach. A daily briefing schedule has been reinstituted and the big guns have been pulled out. Besides Arun Jaitley giving on- and off-record briefings, all the ministers in the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry — M Venkaiah Naidu, Rajiv Pratap Rudy and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi — are in touch with correspondents in the Parliament precincts. Additionally, a formal briefing is held every day by a senior leader.
Despite such rigorous preparations, the opening day of the session lived up to the Congress’s promise of a “thunder and lightning” show during the monsoon. With the Mahila Morcha leading a demonstration, it was clear that little business would be transacted unless Sushma Swaraj, Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Singh Chouhan resigned. Predictably, the most intelligent intervention came from Sitaram Yechury of the CPI(M) in the Rajya Sabha.
As Anand Sharma and Ghulam Nabi Azad of the Congress jousted with Arun Jaitley, now the Leader of the House, Yechury summed up the situation well: “Why is the Minister interrupting?… Serious allegations have come against the Minister for External Affairs, and against the chief ministers of some states. We are asking the government of the day — let there be a high-level enquiry. And, on that basis, till the enquiry is over, let these people demit office or they are to be removed from office. When they [the BJP] were sitting here in the Opposition; and when the Leader of the House today was the Leader of the Opposition; and when the Leader of Opposition today was a Minister in the then Government, from this very place, I supported the then Leader of Opposition when he said that a discussion in the House is not a substitute for investigation.”
The Congress certainly believes it is time to return the favour. For the first time since the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha in 2010, Sonia Gandhi showed signs of genuine animation in the Parliament precincts. “What were you doing for the past so many years,” she asked, as the BJP accused her party of “running away from debate”.
Accordingly, no business was transacted in the Rajya Sabha on the first day. Proceedings began on the second day with Sushma Swaraj threatening to expose the Congress MP who was “pressing” her to give a diplomatic passport to coal scam-accused Santosh Bagrodia.
The Government’s hopes rest with the perennial weathercocks in Parliament — the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Biju Janata Dal, Trinamool Congress et al. Comforting noises made by SP’s various leaders, especially Mulayam Singh Yadav’s brother Ram Gopal Yadav on the Land Acquisition Act, raised hopes in the treasury benches of isolating the Congress. The Prime Minister was even seen holding hands with the SP Chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, signalling a future bailout.
But things do not always go according to plan on the floor of the House, especially when a section is determined to disrupt proceedings. Sample the extreme caution with which the Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan proceeded on the second day: “Mananiya sadasyo, mein apna prastav rakhoon, usse pehle ek nivedan hai ki sadan mein is prakar se kaale jhande dikhana ya kaali patti bandhna uchit nahin hai. Aap sab jaante hain. (Before I start with the resolution, I would like to urge all of you to take into consideration the fact that wearing black badges and showing black flags is not appropriate. It should not be done within the Parliament precincts).”
Despite the warnings, the Congress MPs wore black badges and waved placards, placing them strategically next to the Speaker’s chair for the benefit of TV cameras. “Bada Modi Meharbaan to chhota Modi Pehalwan (Lalit Modi is prospering with the blessings of Narendra Modi),” read one placard. “You stop it… You can’t show placards. I will take disciplinary action,” the Speaker said. Her threat of “disciplinary action” irritated those from the BJD, TMC and the Left parties who had not yet joined the Congress. “Is this a parliamentary democracy or not? I have my rights. Don’t threaten me. Arrest me for violating privilege,” shouted the CPI(M)’s Mohammed Salim.
The situation suits the Congress immensely. With just 44 MPs in the Lok Sabha, it has almost ensured that the Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, 2015 will not see the light of day, not at least in this session. And although it is apparently supportive of other important legislations such as the Goods and Services Tax Bill and may allow a day for its discussion and passage, it has little to lose if other bills such as Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, 2013, Whistleblowers Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2015 etc, do not get passed. The government will lose face and suffer a dent in its claim that it has ended policy paralysis.
The BJP is clearly staring at its toughest challenge in Parliament since it came to power.