Congress’ protest card vs BJP's discipline card: Why the latter has upper hand in Parliament

New Delhi: The BJP is determined on changing the rule of the game in Parliament and not allowing the opposition Congress to run away with the show in the monsoon session. Silencing the opposition by ejecting them from both Houses on grounds of discipline, and taking advantage of the powers of the chair, seem to be strategies they are going to adopt the rest of their tenure. The monsoon session, considered a washout by media and BJP detractors, has, after all, seen some work in Lok Sabha during the last two days — post the unprecedented suspension of 25 Congress MPs. On 5 August, the Delhi High Court amendment Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha. Similarly, on 6 August, taking full advantage of the empty opposition benches, the ruling alliance also ensured the passage of two key Bills — the Negotiable Instruments Act Amendment Bill, which was actually an Ordinance and The Repealing and Amending (Fourth) Bill, 2015, pertains to annulling 295 Acts — several of them over 30 years old — which have been declared as redundant by respective central ministries. [caption id=“attachment_2382632” align=“alignleft” width=“300”] Representational image. AFP[/caption] These were no small achievements given that if Congress members were not suspended and other opposition parties were in the House, the score sheet could have easily read ‘zero’. Moreover, even the Congress party, otherwise basking in the media glory of having been able to corner the Modi government, were in two minds when Sushma Swaraj, one of their chief punching bags for the session, took the floor in Lok Sabha and made an “undisturbed” presentation of her version wherein she denied helping Lalit Modi. Worse for the Congress, Sushma Swaraj, the superb debater that she is, also made optimum use of the occasion and chose to direct her question to Sonia Gandhi saying, “…I ask you what would you have done, if we were in my place… would you have left the cancer affected woman (Lalit Modi’s wife) to die”. Reportedly Sonia was fuming over the query and both she and her handpicked Anand Sharma did not have any convincing reply to counter Sushma at the party briefing other than repeating what Congress leaders have been saying for last 40 days. “If the day belonged to BJP in Lok Sabha, the woman of the match was Sushma Swaraj,” remarked a BJP Minister giving an analogy of cricket match. “If an analogy is to be drawn with a soccer match, the goal post was left unguarded and thanks to self-inflicted red card, our task became easier,” said another. As suggested in an earlier Firstpost article , the BJP quickly jumped to make use of the same ‘enforce discipline’ Lok Sabha formula in the Upper House. As many as 30 BJP and its allies lawmakers in Rajya Sabha petitioned chairman Hamid Ansari to crack the whip on errand Congress MPs. “The conduct of some members of the Congress is not allowing us to discharge our duty as MPs… We request you now to take action against such members disrupting the House proceedings," the missive ran. Congress has been taken aback by this and as of now their only point of solace is: chairman Hamid Ansari is a UPA-nominee Vice President of India. And he would display better sense of judgement than the chair in Lok Sabha. A section of the JD(U) has already cautioned Congress that depending ‘solely’ on BJP’s anti-Ansari past could not save them if the chair wants to make use of the discipline yardstick. “The Congress argument is self-defeating. They charge Speaker in Lok Sabha with being partisan as she was elected on BJP ticket and at the same believe they can go scot-free simply because the Congress-led UPA had made him Vice President,” says a JD(U) insider, however, adding given its Bihar compulsions the party will stick to the Congress. However, the same cannot be spoken about Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress or Samajwadi Party. While a section of Trinamool members feel Banerjee took a rather emotive decision when she opposed suspension of Congress MPs, it could be perhaps difficult to repeat the same change against chair of Rajya Sabha too if situation demands. Moreover, Samajwadi Party’s Dharmendra Yadav has made it clear that they are supporting Congress over suspension in Lok Sabha but they are not casting any aspersion on the chair. “Chair is supreme,” he says adding “we still remember when our 8 MPs were marshalled out of Rajya Sabha to pass the women reservation Bill”. Displaying for once that the gloves have been taken off, BJP MP Kirit Somaiya in Lok Sabha has also moved a privilege motion against Youth Congress volunteers for protesting against the Speaker. His plea was supported by other BJP MPs and even the Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu. Speaker Sumitra Mahajan herself said, “the matter (to refer the issue to Privilege committee) is under my consideration”. The Lok Sabha Secretary General had already served a notice to Robert Vadra for his uncharitable remarks against MPs. The battle has just begun and BJP believes, “by and large people of India would prefer enforcement of discipline for MPs”. BJP believes panic has already caught up in the Congress camp. It is this nervousness that has made Sonia take the risk of taking an unwise stand vis-à-vis Naga peace talks. Two Congress leaders including Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi had welcomed the peace breakthrough, but now Sonia has termed not consulting the Congress chief ministers in the region a display of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘arrogance’. “Sonia’s attack that Congress chief ministers were not consulted is on expected line but uncalled for. But had she not taken a political risk as Congress could be now seen as opposing the hard earned peace process itself,” says BJP MP Bijoya Chakraborty from Assam. The suave Union Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman endorses her party colleague and says, “We probably never saw an Opposition party speaking against the interests of the country”. “A peace accord in which majority of groups have agreed and became part of it but Congress does not have statesmanship to see it,’’ she charged. Thus, in a season when the Sonia Gandhi’s protest seemed to have earned her fame and gave her party cadres “some hopes and issues” to fight back on the streets to come out of the shocking defeat of 2014 polls; the saffron party strategists think it is they who could have the last laugh.