Opposition justifies stalling parliament

New Delhi: India’s principal opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) justified the recent washout of the monsoon session of parliament saying stalling functioning of the parliament is part and parcel of democracy while rejecting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s contention that BJP’s stalling tactics were hurting democracy.

“I would like to remind the prime minister, when he was leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha, they had stalled parliament over the Tehelka issue. Even over the coffin scam, they stalled parliament and called us coffin thieves,” said Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj defending the opposition tactics, and adding that not allowing parliament to function was also a form of democracy.

Soon after the monsoon session, which ended on September 7, with Parliament functioning only for seven of the 20 days, Prime Minister Singh lashed out at the opposition for the washout. “We take pride in the fact we have a functional democracy. But what we have witnessed in this session is a total negation of that.” A visibly upset Singh told the media outside Parliament House after both Houses were adjourned sine die.

Swaraj was right in saying that stalling parliament is part and parcel of parliamentary democracy. However, the dimensions of the disruptions have changed over the years. What earlier would last for a few hours or just a few days now last for weeks. A total of 13 days were lost this time as the opposition demanded the Prime Minister’s resignation and the cancellation of all coal-blocks that were allegedly allocated by the government to various private and government-sector companies at throwaway prices.

Worst still, none can say the protests would not spill over to the winter session which normally starts in the last week of November and continues until the year’s end, since the BJP-led opposition is hell bent on keeping the coal fire burning until the 2014 general elections which is barely 19 months away. Pinning down the Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government on corruption charges, it feels, is their sure ticket to power.

The loss of 13 days matches the last winter session of 2011 when exactly 13 days were lost with the opposition demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the Rs1.76 trillion (Dh116.5 billion) 2G spectrum allocation scam.

However, the winter session last year lasted for 38 working days, which meant the parliament could function for 22 days, which was enough for the government to do all listed legislative business and even pass 17 bills.

The longest protest inside the Parliament was witnessed in the late 1980s when the opposition boycotted both Houses of Parliament for 45 days. However, the nature of protests then was different. The opposition was simply keeping away from parliament. Since the Congress party was in a massive majority having won more than two-thirds of seats in 1984 general elections which was held within months of the then prime minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination, the Rajiv Gandhi government managed to ensure normal functioning of Parliament, although it gave in to the opposition demand for a JPC to probe the Bofors scandal in which the Swedish company was accused of paying kickbacks to the tune of Rs640 million to procure the Rs15 billion deal.

Later when P.V. Narasimha Rao became the prime minister in 1991, proceedings in parliament were disrupted for a fortnight with the opposition demanding removal of the then telecom minister Sukh Ram who was caught by the Central Bureau of Investigation with Rs36 million in cash which apparently was part of a bribe paid to him. The government resisted the opposition demand but managed to get some of the listed bills passed amid the ruckus with tactical approval from the opposition. Incidentally Sukh Ram was later found guilty by the court and sentenced to five years in prison.

The Congress party with Sonia Gandhi as the Leader of the Opposition was at the forefront of disrupting parliament demanding a JPC probe into the 2001 Tehelka episode in which undercover journalists of the news portal paid bribes and caught some senior BJP leader accepting money for an imaginary arms deal. BJP, which was in power then, resisted all pressures and managed to push its entire agenda to get parliament’s approval.

Initially the total loss in terms of money wasted due to opposition protest was estimated to be Rs200 million, which Swaraj was quick to justify saying the money could easily be recovered if their demand for cancellation of coal block allocations and auctioning was accepted.

However, there is another way to calculate the loss of money which was propagated by the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Pawan Kumar Bansal.

According to Bansal, the Lok Sabha lost 77 per cent of its working hours while the Rajya Sabha lost 72 per cent of its listed working hours. Since the parliament remains in session for on an average of 80 days every year, the total annual cost of running and maintaining parliament should be divided by 80 days and not 365 days. According to his calculation, it costs the exchequer Rs250,000 per functional minute to run Parliament and hence the total loss to the exchequer was to the tune of a whopping Rs1.28 billion.