All noise, no substance: Cong lacks real strategy to washout monsoon session

The Congress seems to have seriously erred in its monsoon session washout policy. It was successfully disrupting proceedings of both houses of Parliament, forcing repeated adjournments for second consecutive day, but the manner in which it chose to do so and subsequent events clearly reflected that it neither had a good strategy nor broad support of other parties in opposition. It was not without reason that the Congress had to suffer embarrassment of cancelling its much hyped decision to hold a dharna in front of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in Parliament premises on Wednesday. The dharna led by Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi was to be unprecedented in Congress history, as it would have been for the first time that the Nehru-Gandhi family participated in such a dharna inside Parliament House. After all, for 60 years the Congress’ family either has ruled the country by itself or held the actual control over Raisina Hills. [caption id=“attachment_2357618” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. PTI[/caption] Though no official reason was given for the abrupt termination of the move, but it is understood that the party failed to enlist support from other parties, like the one it had got when Sonia led a protest march to Rashtrapati Bhawan over the Land Acquisition Bill. This time around a risk of a wilful portrayal of standing in isolation would have been too much to be bear. Rahul, on his part, entered Parliament without offering any sound bite, despite continued insistence by the media. Other than the Left and its ally in Bihar JD(U), no other party in Opposition approves of the Congress rigidity over the removal of three top BJP leaders — a precondition to have a discussion on the floor of the House. With Lalitgate and Vyapam, the Congress had sensed a kill against the Modi government, and buoyed by media hype, it went for an overkill by demanding removal of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and two most powerful chief ministers of the BJP, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Vasundhara Raje before the two Houses of Parliament could transact any of regular legislative business. The Congress’ demands, if met, would have dismantled the current organisational and hierarchical power structure in the BJP, as also bringing Prime Minister Narendra Modi in direct line of fire of the Opposition. Alternatively, it would discredit Modi’s ‘na khaunga na khane dunga’ claim and taint BJP leadership. The Congress, however, underestimated ruling BJP’s retaliatory capabilities. What began as an issue of propriety and public probity has now turned into a mud-slinging match between the BJP and the Congress, and what seems to matter most is whose pitch is more instilled with logical arguments and display of evidence. The BJP may not be scoring high on the probity count, but with its display of evidences or at least rhetoric against Congress leaders — beginning with Sushma Swaraj’s allegation that a senior former union minister “pressed me hard to give diplomatic passport to the coal scam accused Satnosh Bagrodia” and saying that she would reveal name of that senior minister during course of debate in Parliament — it has managed to keep Congress on tenterhooks. The BJP held two press conferences during the day – coming out with a video CD against the personal secretary of Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat where he is apparently seen accepting a bribe with a promise to tinker with liquor sale policy in the state. The said personal secretary Mohammad Shahid has been working with Rawat for a long time and shifted to Dehradun from Delhi on the chief minister’s request. “Uttarakhand CM and his hand-picked personal secretary were involved in liquor scam and loot during Uttarakhand floods,” BJP leader Nirmala Sitharaman said. Two hours later, two Union ministers from the north east, Kiren Rijiju and Sarbananda Sonowal held another press conference at the BJP headquarters to say senior Congress leader PK Thungan, two time chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh and two time Union minister (last in Narshimha Rao government) has been convicted by the CBI court in an irrigation scam. Meanwhile, whatever little arguments and counter arguments took place in Rajya Sabha indicated that the Congress though moved an adjournment motion for two consecutive days, it was not prepared to discuss that. Usually, the government of the day does not accept an adjournment motion because it is also considered to be a censure motion against the government but when Arun Jaitley accepted the challenge and declared that the discussion (on Lalitgate) must start right away and Sushma Swaraj was ready to respond, either in the beginning of the debate or in the end, the Congress backtracked and got back to shouting slogans demanding resignation of Sushma, Shivraj and Vasundhara. Unfortunately for Congress, it didn’t have any fresh ammunition to target the BJP. The issues relating to Sushma and Vasundhara have been debated and discussed for about a month now and there are no new revelations in the case that could set the monsoon session on fire. In the Vyapam scam, the main demand — of the Congress and that of whistleblowers — of transferring the cases from STF to CBI has been met. On Supreme Court orders the CBI has already begun its job. More so, there is a growing public mood which hopes to see some fruitful transaction of business in Parliament. The Congress will find it hard to go back from its demand of no business without removal of Sushma, Shivraj and Vasundhara. This time around, it is not even asking for a response from PM Modi.