Logjam in Houses: No way out, yet

New Delhi: The main Opposition Congress on Saturday virtually punctured the government’s attempts to break the current logjam in Parliament by calling an all-party meeting, expectedly on Monday, by demanding that the resignations of Union minister Sushma Swaraj and chief ministers Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Singh Chouhan in connection with “Lalitgate” and the Vyapam scam should be the agenda of the meeting.

Government managers are finding it difficult to break the unity of the Congress, Left and JD(U) and may not able to bring arch-rivals Samajwadi Party and BSP and AIADMK and DMK together in the Rajya Sabha, where its legislative business would be affected.

While the Congress, Left and JD(U)’s total strength in the Rajya Sabha is 90, the BSP has 10 members and the DMK four. If the Bihar Assembly polls have brought the Congress-JD(U) together, the Left cannot back the Modi government due to its strong ideological opposition.

The government appeared unlikely to oblige the Opposition with Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad repeating its earlier stand that external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj was ready to make a statement and that state issues cannot be discussed in Parliament. The government is pegging its hopes on the Trinamul Congress (34 members in the Lok Sabha and 12 in the Rajya Sabha) and the Samajwadi Party (five in LS and 15 in RS), but political compulsions in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh may not allow chief minister Mamata Banerjee and SP supremo Mulayam Singh to be seen as friendly towards the Narendra Modi government.

On Saturday, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad was tight-lipped on whether the Congress would take part in the meeting. Instead, he advised government managers to learn from former PM Atal Behari Vajpayee about how to resolve such issues through dialogue, discussions and a “give-and-take” strategy.

“We have said the motions which the Congress party and the leaders of different Opposition parties have moved on the Floor of the Houses, be it Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha, during the past two weeks, the sub-text of those motions is — ‘What was the action taken on Vyapam, on the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, on the chief minister of Rajasthan, and against the Union minister, on seeking their resignations?’ ,” Mr Azad said.

If the meeting with Opposition leaders is based on discussions on these issues, yes. Whether we may agree to that proposal or may not agree, whether the government may agree to our proposal or not agree, but that should be the agenda for discussion, and not just having a cup of tea. If that is not there, that shows yet another effort of the government... that they are not interested in running Parliament,” Mr Azad said.

He added that it was strange that the ruling party itself was not interested in running Parliament. “We had an informal all-party meeting on Friday. Of course that meeting was not so much organised (sic) but we had an informal meeting and talks. We came to the conclusion that we have no objection to discussions, but the discussions should not be that you meet over tea, and I quoted (this) in Parliament also. There is an old saying that ‘they came, they met, they discussed, they ate and they dispersed’. We are not interested in that type of meeting.”

“But does this government believe in democracy, (does it) take everybody along, has this government made any effort to reach out to the Opposition? Yes, they will try to reach individuals, to split them, Mr Azad said, adding, “That is not a democracy and not a parliamentary system. That you can do during elections. You cannot reach out to individual political parties and try to woo them. You have to find a solution and satisfy the issues raised by the Opposition jointly, and you have to jointly face them. But this government has failed.”

Meanwhile, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi is expected to lay out the party’s strategy in Parliament on Monday, ahead of an all-party meet called by the government to end the deadlock that has hit legislative work during what has been a rocky Monsoon Session. Mrs Gandhi is to address a meeting of the general body of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) on Monday morning, before the start of the third week of the current session.

This will be the first meeting of the CPP general body during the Monsoon Session. The Congress has already said that its participation in an all -party meeting to break the two-week-long deadlock in Parliament depends on a “tangible” proposal from PM Modi on the Opposition’s demands.

“We are not interested in a mere photo-op, tea and sandwiches. The PM must first tell us what action is being taken on our demands,” senior Congress spokesman Anand Sharma said.