Modi must get used to hearing the Opposition

The hope that the BJP would become more democratic after a chastening verdict has been belied.

At the start of the second half of the monsoon session of Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed the Opposition was not letting him speak. “For two-and-a-half hours, attempts were made to throttle the voice of the prime minister…they have no remorse over it,” Modi wailed disingenuously. It was a lament that smacks of political hypocrisy.

It is under Modi’s watch that there has been a grave dismantling of free speech both inside and outside Parliament. Modi claims the Opposition shows no remorse, but has Modi ever shown remorse for throttling the voices of scores of dissenters and activists? It is precisely this self-obsessed vanity and privileging of the government view that has led to a breakdown of trust between the Opposition and the government in Parliament.

Parliament works best when there is camaraderie across the aisle, and both sides unite to protect parliamentary democracy. In the 1950s, then Jana Sangh parliamentarian Atal Bihari Vajpayee called the Communist Party of India (CPI)’s Bhupesh Gupta ‘dada’, and referred to the CPI’s Hiren Mukherjee as ‘Hiren-da’. In September 1989, in a public exchange of letters between Vajpayee and Mukherjee, the two ideological rivals fiercely opposed each other on the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, but Mukherjee addressed his letters ‘My dear Atal’, and Vajpayee replied with ‘Dear Hiren-da’.

These virtues of parliamentary respect have been destroyed by the Modi-led BJP, intent on annihilating the Opposition, suspending Opposition MPs, refusing equal time to the Opposition, and failing to reach out to Opposition members to forge consensus. For example, why could Modi have not led an all-party delegation to Manipur where civil strife has raged for over a year?

Modi has not yet accepted that in the 2024 general elections, the voters have not given the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a majority on its own. Citizens have voted for a strong Opposition by hugely boosting its numbers. Voters want Modi’s authoritarianism to be kept in check. Today, the Opposition has found its voice.

Buoyed by the sheer force of numbers, the Opposition is making its presence felt, and pushing back on executive overreach. Today, when Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi speaks, Modi is forced to respond. The domineering Modi, all his political life accustomed to ruling by brute majority, finds even this entirely constitutional assertion by the Opposition, as somehow a “throttling” of his voice. Modi is upset at even a semblance of a level playing field.

However, if there was a hope that after a chastening 2024 verdict, lacking a majority and propped up by allies, the BJP would become more democratic in the 18th Lok Sabha, sadly this has not happened.

For example, the government is still refusing to hold a dialogue with the Opposition on the post of deputy speaker which is lying vacant. The government pushed through Om Birla — who once suspended 115 Opposition MPs in a single session — as Lok Sabha Speaker, knowing Birla was not the Opposition’s choice. In response, the Opposition demanded the deputy speaker’s post. Discussions on the post of the deputy speaker are stalled.

Modi is continuing his name-calling ways in the House. He recently took a dig at Rahul Gandhi in unparliamentary tones: “The House witnessed the wailing of a person with ‘balak buddhi’ (brains of a child),” Modi sneered. In the Rajya Sabha, Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, on August 2, used words like “cheating” and “embezzling” against the Congress; utterances which the chairman was constrained to say would not go on record. The Opposition has already filed a privilege motion against Modi for retweeting casteist comments made by BJP’s Anurag Thakur against Rahul Gandhi. 

Thakur — who at an election rally in Delhi in 2020 incited violence by repeatedly asking ‘what shall we do with traitors?’ to which the crowd shouted ‘goli maaro…’ —in Parliament tauntingly declared that “Those whose caste is not known are asking for a caste census,” directed at Rahul Gandhi. The remarks are casteist as well as racist, and would have been open to legal challenge if uttered outside Parliament. The BJP’s personalised and abusive tone has not changed.

As was the case in the 17th Lok Sabha, Modi still barely attends Parliament. After a decade in power, Modi still hasn’t answered a single question in Parliament and only participates in the customary Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address. During the Question Hour, Modi is mostly absent.

The government is continuing to get its way in both Houses by not answering questions on urgent issues of public interest. In the Rajya Sabha, Kerala MPs had to protest to get time allotted for a discussion on the Wayanad catastrophe. By contrast, after the tragic drownings on July 27 in Delhi when three UPSC aspirants lost their lives, a short-duration discussion was immediately allowed after the BJP, aiming to corner the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), put in notices.

Today the role of the chairs in both Houses does not seem to have changed much from what it was in the 17th Lok Sabha. The government is not taken as severely and constantly to task as the Opposition is.

The 17th Lok Sabha (2019-2024) was the very nadir of parliamentary functioning in the history of India’s parliamentary democracy. The maximum number of Opposition MPs were suspended then. In an unprecedented move, 146 opposition MPs were suspended in the winter session of December 2023. Opposition MPs were not present in the House when the crucial new criminal laws were rammed through. Instead of first debating Bills in the House, the Modi-led regime issued 11 ordinances per year between 2014 and 2021. Ten ordinances were issued on the eve of the 2019 general elections. The Modi government introduced 82 Bills in Parliament between 2019 and 2020 but only 17 were sent to parliamentary standing committees for scrutiny.

The Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) needs to appreciate that it cannot be business as usual in Parliament anymore. Crucial laws like the abrogation of Article 370, or the farm laws, or the GNCTD Amendment Bill diluting the powers of the Delhi government cannot be rammed through. Fanciful ideas like the Uniform Civil Code must be put on the back burner. This time the legislative agenda will need to be based on consensus, and not strong-arm tactics.

The 18th Lok Sabha is not the 17th Lok Sabha. A Modi-led NDA needs to get used to a new reality of ‘Abki Baar no char sau or even 272 paar’.

(The writer is a senior journalist and Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP)