It’s been an interesting week with the Sonia Gandhi-Smriti Irani face off dominating the Parliament. However, finally some real issues got their day on the floor of the House as price rise and inflation were discussed. Though the Congress staged a walk-out in the middle of the finance minister’s reply, at least they did not disrupt the debate—even though a major part of the government’s defence was to point out how high the prices were during the opposition’s rule, instead of focusing on the now. However, when the government tried to take credit for the fact that as many as 80 crore people were given free rations, this led to an uproar with the opposition pointing out that Right to Food was everyone’s basic right.
Backdoor channels were worked to try and get the Parliament going again with the Speaker calling a meeting of all the floor leaders. Cabinet Minister Piyush Goyal tried to get the House back into working mode and when the Congress raised the issue of its four suspended MPs, Goyal immediately agreed to revoke their suspension. The Congress, too, made a concession with Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury assuring the Speaker that from now on, his party MPs would not enter the well of the House raising placards and stall the proceedings.
Despite this compromise, the Congress did not wait to hear the finance minister’s reply and staged a walk-out. Later, Congress spokesperson told us that one reason behind the walk out was that the answer did not dwell as much on the present reality as it tried to gloss over the real issues. Politically speaking, the argument was fair enough and the walk out as a Parliament tool is often used by all parties to show their opposition. It is definitely a much more peaceful method than disrupting the House with slogans and placards. We are also told that when they get a chance to reply, the Opposition will come armed with facts and case studies such as raising the GST of pre-packaged food items. One hopes the Treasury Benches will allow them to speak. At least then, the people of India will get a debate and a chance to see their issues being raised. And for this, both the government and the opposition are to be complimented for breaking the impasse. AIMIM leader Assauddin Owaisi made an important point recently when he stated that in the last few years, there has been a trend where the executive is trying to weaken the legislature. As far as optics are concerned, the opposition did right by not stalling the House on the issue of misuse of ED & CBI (many MPs from the opposition are facing the ire of the investigation agencies, and this is a talking point in TV studios). But this issue does not have the same mass appeal as that of price hike. In fact, the Congress has been criticised for taking to the streets when its leaders were summoned by the ED, but not being as vocal on price hike. Again, rising prices is an issue which can get the entire opposition together. Earlier, we saw the Aam Admi Party grumbling that the Congress did not support it when their minister was arrested, but wanted the entire opposition to protest against the fact that the Gandhis were questioned.
One hopes that this kind of initiative remains for the rest of the session, where both sides the Treasury Benches and the Opposition, come together on issues that matter for the rest of the country, and not just those which affect their party leaders.