by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
Weekly Article : Mr
Modi's Opposition
By:- Harish Gupta
In this season when democracy is
rocking the nation--it has brought to power a man denounced till the other day
as "divisive" and "communal"--there is still a feeling that
something is amiss. It is the Opposition, no doubt. With 336 seats in the lower
house in the bag of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling NDA, those
sitting across the government bench still number 209. Not a negligible number!
The Rajya Sabha, on the other hand, looks like the place where the opposition
could be on a roll. Against BJP's strength of just 44, the Congress has 68
members. Who says then that the opposition doesn't exist?
Sure it exists, but only in numbers. In reality, the
non-NDA parties are both splintered and dispirited. Just how splintered it has
got shows in the fact that, except Congress, the four other non-NDA parties to
have won double-digit seats are all regional parties-AIADMK (37), TMC (34), BJD
(20) and TRS (11). The once-mighty CPI(M), ever so critical of the neo-liberal
"drift" of the successive Union governments since the 1991 economic
reforms, couldn't reach even the two-digit mark.
Though the Constitution makes no distinction between the
national parties, and their regional (or caste-based) compatriots, it is
obvious that MPs of the state parties are generally loudspeakers of their state
leaders. Seldom do they make meaningful contributions to discussion on the
larger issues involving strategic affairs, or the macro-economic policies. If
the opposition benches are the best sounding board for a new government testing
the feasibility of its new ideas on governance, then the 16th Lok Sabha offers
little scope for the administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to gauge
how far it can go in pursuit of a policy. Usually it's the job of parties with
wide vision, like the Congress or the CPI(M), to wave the red flag if the
government seems taking misstep. As British political theorist (and Jawaharlal
Nehru's teacher) Harold Laski said, "A government can always learn more
from the criticism of its opponents than from the eulogy of its
supporters".
However, the misfortune of Congress and the communists is
not just they have such skimpy numbers in the Lok Sabha. The most worrying fact
is that their most articulate members have lost the election. The Congress
benches too have been totally denuded of the party's star speakers and wise
parliamentarians, a phenomenon exemplified by Mallikarjun Kharge, a
septuagenarian and not quite the brightest of the lights in any position, being
made the leader of the party in the lower house.
The regional parties on the other hand have limited
interests, as mentioned earlier. Beside, judging by their current attitude to
Modi and the ruling BJP, they seem to be anything but opposition parties.
Jayalalithaa, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK's head honcho, has not only
formally met Prime Minister Modi but is hopeful that her party MP M.
Thambidurai might be given a ceremonial post in Delhi. Thambidurai served as Lok Sabha deputy
speaker in the 1980's when Rajiv Gandhi was prime minister. The Tamil Nadu CM
has personal worries too, with the Supreme Court prodding the CBI to press
charges against her in a protracted "disproportionate asset" case.
The Central government certainly can't help her much in a Supreme Court directed
investigation, but there is a general belief that one has little chance of
relief in a graft case if the Centre is hostile. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen
Patnaik too has been a picture of conviviality with Modi, having met him
already with his entire team of victorious MPs and a robust promise of
cooperation with the Centre. The TMC led by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata
Bannerji, which is the fourth largest party (after BJP, Congress and AIADMK),
after bitterly attacking Modi, is believed to be quietly building bridges. So
far, Modi has shown no interest in her. The TRS may thank Sonia Gandhi for
creating Telangana. But KCR was amongst the first ones to rush to Modi to do
business.
With indecisive Congress,
pliable regional parties,
NDA can sit back
The state satraps-be they the above-mentioned three or
NDA partner TDP of Seemandhra, led by N. Chandrababu Naidu-are grateful to
Modi, which they cannot publicly acknowledge. The Modi 'blizzard' created by
BJP's high-voltage campaign did reduce to pulp their chief local opponents,
like CPI(M) in Bengal, Congress in Odhisa,
Seemandhra and Telengana, and, to an extent, the DMK in Tamil Nadu. The Modi
storm blew the incumbent away, the JD(U) in Bihar, the SP in Uttar Pradesh, AAP
in Delhi.
So, is there any opposition still left? Well, not much,
except the regional parties which are, at best, something like His Majesty's
Opposition, but in reality they're shaping to be something like 'Mr. Modi's
opposition'. In all likelihood, they'll develop a symbiotic relation with the
Centre.
The Congress, on the other hand, is indecisive and
confused. The choice of Kharge as its Lok Sabha chief is an example. It
happened because the Gandhis' are unwilling to lead their team on the floor,
for reasons best known to them. The party's 44 MPs are all too fragile, with
one of them, and possibly the brightest of the lot, Mr. Shashi Tharoor, even
showering on Modi fulsome praise, turning on its head his party's declared
position on Modi and BJP. Ironically, the sharpest abuse to Tharoor from his
party came not from top leaders but from the unflappable Mani Shankar Aiyar
who, for that matter, had not only lost the election in Tamil Nadu but had
finished fourth. JD(U)'s Nitish Kumar is yet another optimist who has offered a
Rajya Sabha seat to Congress hoping that it is still the sheet anchor of a
future secular front. He is hoping that an ideological opposition will be
reborn. He must be humming: hum honge kamyaab ek din.
(The author is
National Editor of
Lokmat group)
