NEW DELHI: The three-day session of the Delhi Assembly that ended on Monday exposed chinks in the armour of the ruling Congress that were exploited by its own party legislators on various issues. The Bharatiya Janata Party failed to perform the role of an effective Opposition inside the House lending credence to allegations that some of its party men had colluded with Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit to let her Government off the hook on important issues.

Poor strategy, inefficient floor planning and sidelining of important issues forced even the ruling Congress MLAs to accuse the Opposition of being hand-in-glove with the Chief Minister and making every attempt to bail her out. The session also brought out into the open fissures within the BJP Legislature Party that was quite evident during the proceedings of the House.

Delhi Assembly-watchers were surprised at the role of the Leader of the Opposition, Jagdish Mukhi, and his attempts to go out of the way to appease the ruling party. He was ably assisted in this by his Chief Whip, Sahib Singh Chauhan, who hardly had any control over his flock and was mostly seen speaking out of turn in the House. In fact, it was left to the Nationalist Congress Party MLA, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, to take on the Government on important issues.

While there was division within the BJP ranks over bringing a no-confidence motion against the Sheila Dikshit Government, Prof. Mukhi argued his way out by stating that it was a decision of the party high command. "There is hardly any direction from the high command on such issues. If at all such an order has to come, it should also have been conveyed to Harsh Vardhan. But that has not happened and in this case our high command seems to the Chief Minister,'' a former BJP Minister remarked.

The decision of the BJP to bring in the no-confidence motion took everyone by surprise and it failed to corner the Government on the Public Accounts Committee's report on privatisation of power.

When senior Congress MLA, Subhash Chopra, was speaking on the issue of power against his own Government and the role of the bureaucracy, to everyone's surprise Mr. Chauhan got up to not only defend the bureaucracy but also the Government.

Similarly, when the debate on fast running meters was going on, both Ms. Dikshit and Prof. Mukhi were seen holding parleys in the MLAs lounge after which some of the BJP members started walking out of the House to ensure that the discussion initiated by Mr. Bidhuri falls through due to lack of quorum. It is another matter that this did not happen.

Similarly, when Prof. Mukhi raised the issue of the smart card scam in the Transport Department and made many allegations against the Government, not a single member from his party supported him.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail