Opinion - News Analysis   

This impasse must be broken

Harish Khare

Bhairon Singh Shekhawat should take the lead in resolving the standoff in Parliament.

THE LOK Sabha witnessed a total impasse on Thursday between the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Opposition and the Chair. The three-day-old impasse acquired a critical edge when on Tuesday the National Democratic Alliance leader and former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, allowed himself to append his signature to a letter to the Speaker, almost rebuking the veteran parliamentarian that "confidence in one's fairness and objectivity has to be commanded; it cannot be demanded."

This standoff between the Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, and the BJP benches has been in the making for sometime now. The primary reason being the BJP's collective failure to come to terms with the May 2004 defeat, and this failure has shaped the party's rather strange response to all the constitutional arrangements. The BJP has been content to disrupt Parliament from the word go; it has tried to instigate the President to become an extra-constitutional player; it has tried to play to the judicial gallery; and, it has tried to inveigle the Election Commission in partisan politics.

Part of the problem, also, is that the BJP leadership has lost control over the backbenchers, while the leaders themselves are engaged in games, wanting to outdo one another in appearing more "confrontationist" than the other, more aggressive than the other in projecting the party's point of view. The disarray at the organisational level has come to determine the BJP's parliamentary performance. That so seasoned and so balanced a parliamentarian as Mr. Vajpayee would allow himself to put his name to an ill-advised communication only shows the cumulative toll the disarray has taken on the BJP's collective behaviour.

However, experienced parliamentary observers are convinced Mr. Vajpayee must already be regretting the letter he addressed to the Lok Sabha Speaker. Except bearing his signature, the letter certainly does not reflect the former Prime Minister's abiding commitment to parliamentary institution. He must be distraught that a communication from him should produce an impasse.

This stalemate can be broken only if there is creative intervention. As it is, the BJP members have a feeling that they do not get the kind of attention (and indulgence) that is due to them from the Prime Minister. Though the BJP members perhaps choose not to remember that their party has done its very best to try to delegitimise Dr. Manmohan Singh's premiership. Normally, it is the job of the Speaker to be the instrument of conciliation and mediation between the Government and the Opposition. Now if there is a logjam between the Speaker and the Opposition, the entire institution of Parliament could unthinkingly slide into a constitutional paralysis.

The onus, by the process of elimination, rests on the Vice-President and Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, to try his hand at bringing the non-talking parties to sit and work together. Mr. Shekhawat has the stature and the political wisdom to make the two sides see reason. As the presiding officer in the Rajya Sabha, he has earned a reputation for dealing firmly but fairly with his former party colleagues, without giving the UPA benches any reason to complain. Given the prevailing mood of confrontation between the UPA and the NDA parliamentary managers, Mr. Shekhawat is perhaps the only functionary around who can help the two sides overcome the communication deficit. He could begin by initiating informal consultation with the Leaders of the two Houses.

What needs to be understood clearly by the two warring groups is that partisanship cannot be allowed to get the better of political prudence and constitutional wisdom. And all political leaders, irrespective of political affiliations, cannot be unmindful of the fact that the disruptions and disagreements have come to define the working of Parliament as an institution. What is more, other institutional players, especially the judiciary, are incrementally encroaching upon Parliament's domain and privileges. Only by putting up a united and working face can the parliamentarians rebuff these encroachments, and renew Parliament's public reputation and democratic legitimacy.

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

Stories in this Section

Unedifying behaviour
In a bind in Iraq
Beirut: time for another requiem?
Cost of Israel's disproportionate response
Women re-enact march against apartheid
Corrections and clarifications
This impasse must be broken
A `final' note on credit
An ASEAN-India standoff
Natwar Singh's reaction
Israel's aggression
Kerala education Act
A welcome ban
Neglect of schools

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu