Joys of more talktime

Parliament abhors a vacuum, and if the NDA is not around to oppose the treasury benches, the communists will happily oblige and mobilise the...

Parliament abhors a vacuum, and if the NDA is not around to oppose the treasury benches, the communists will happily oblige and mobilise the oppositional space. The past ten days have presented what could perhaps be the most grave crisis in our parliamentary history. When the opposition says it not confident that it will be given a chance to have its say, the representative character of Indian democracy has to be in great peril. But, then, every crisis bring with it an opportunity, and the Left parties have seized it. Parliamentary records show that the Great Indian Parliamentary Standoff has given them a chance to play out their most cherished of fantasies. They can sit in Lok Sabha, glance to their right, thrill to the sight of empty green benches, and glance again to the treasury benches on their left, their rhetoric instantly sharpened, their gaze on the ruling Congress decidedly adversarial. The dictatorship of the proletariat may still not be on the horizon, but cudgels can once again be taken up against bourgeois governments.

Parliamentary records show that a year of supporting the UPA government has not robbed the communist parties of any of their appetite for confrontation. During the boycott they have monopolised 40 per cent of talktime. They have spoken of the plight of anganwadi workers and Air India engineers deprived of union elections. They have bristled at the prospect of FDI in the retail sector. And when time’s run out, they have pointed to the emptiness of the NDA benches and pleaded with Speaker Sir to apportion to them the absent MPs’ talktime. The government must be wondering, with allies like these, who needs an opposition?

Who indeed? Democratically elected governments derive the mandate to rule in great part from substantive engagement with the opposition parties. The NDA boycott may allow the Left to play out its fantasy — the BJP airbrushed out of the picture and its MPs interrogating the Congress in ideological unity. The NDA’s boycott may give them more hours for playacting. But the UPA government must know that it desperately needs the astringent presence of the entire oppositional spectrum to gain validity for its governance.