On verge of blows, Congress-BJP standoff reaches another low

On Tuesday, the police had to be called in the Parliament House premises to disentangle MPs and MLAs of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress as they moved towards each other threateningly, shouting slogans.

The incident was a fitting finale to the deep fissure between the ruling party and the main Opposition that has nearly held up the functioning of the monsoon session of Parliament. “There has been tension (between the ruling party and the Opposition) in the past as well. But I have never seen relations turning so bitter,” said S S Ahluwalia, BJP deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha.

The proximate reason for today’s clash was the recent appointment of the Lokayukta in Gujarat. Congress MPs met President Pratibha Patil to complain about the ‘smear campaign’ launched by the party against Governor Kamla Beniwal on the issue.

The Narendra Modi-led BJP government has asked the court to quash the governor’s ‘unilateral’ appointment of a Lokayukta, charging her with bypassing procedures.

“Ab yah spasht hai, Narendra Modi bhrasht hai” (Now it is clear that Narendra Modi is corrupt) shouted Congress MPs and MLAs opposite the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Parliament and then walked ahead to address TV cameras.

BJP MPs, who knew this had been planned, arrived and raised counterslogans. The two groups virtually came to blows and the police came to separate them.

“Ab to Kamla bhi inki nahin sun rahi hai. Kisi bimla ko dhoondhna hoga” (Kamla (Beniwal, the governor) is turning a deaf ear to them. They will now have to find somone else)” said a BJP leader, mocking the helplessness of the government. “They’ve lost the plot”.

The Congress reacted to this ferociously. “All they want to do is obstruct and disrupt. They agree to pass bills in the Standing Committee and then oppose them in the House,” said V Narayanswamy, minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office. “They supported the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research Bill of 2010 in the Standing Committee. But in the House they opposed it. They claim they did not realise that people would flock to this institution to the detriment of the Indian Institutes of Technology. But imagine the time we, as a nation, have wasted because the BJP awoke so late,” Narayanswamy said.

“The PM discusses all important issues with them. The finance minister asks them their opinion on everything. Pawan Bansal (the parliamentary affairs minister) talks to them about all problems. And they tell us one thing but act quite differently on the floor of the House.”

Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said: “it is a crisis of confidence. They (the government) are being found out. This government has no game plan”.

Rather like a couple locked in a loveless marriage, the BJP has now taken to raising past government transgressions to justify its current political stance. “The most terrible thing to happen to Indian democracy was the cash-for-votes incident. It was a perversion. India will never forgive them,” said senior party leader L K Advani about the July 2008 event in the previous Lok Sabha. Another BJP leader said: “We were sure that in this session of Parliament, the government would go. We waited. The discussion on inflation was a cautionary note of concern, adopted by the entire House. Then, the Anna Hazare movement for a stronger anti-graft legislation engulfed this government. It was saved by a crisis.”

Minister for Planning, Ashwani Kumar said: “The BJP is holding the House to ransom. They are holding us to ransom”.

In the ‘he-said she-said’ blame game, Congress-BJP relations have deteriorated steadily. The BJP warns if the party is touched in the states it rules, it will hit back at the Centre. The delay in the Goods and Services Tax — which many BJP-ruled states had initially supported — is part of the tit-for-tat war of attrition by wearing down the morale of the government.

The net result is that Parliament gets very little done. On Tuesday, the Constitutional Amendment Bill to change the name of Orissa to Odisha nearly fell, because there was no quorum in the Lok Sabha. Bells had to be rung, lobbies were cleared and ministers and party whips scrambled to collect MPs who had left to go home because the Upper House was adjourned for the day at 12 noon and the Lower House also adjourned a few hours later.