Author: Editorial
Publication: Free Press Journal
Date: June 11, 2004
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/110604-editorial.html
If the first session of the 14th
Parliament was any indication of the shape of things to come, we are in
for some very rude shocks. For the fourth day running, the two Houses of
Parliament conducted no business. On Thursday, Parliament was adjourned
sine die with the Lok Sabha passing with a voice vote amidst unprecedented
scenes of bedlam a motion of thanks to the President on his address to
the joint session of Parliament. That was all. For four consecutive days,
they met, they shouted at each other, and they adjourned. The bone of contention
between the two sides was the issue of `tainted' ministers. Tainted they
were and shall remain an issue for the ruling coalition so long as they
continue to disgrace the ministerial `gaddis'.
Political compulsions might have
obliged the good doctor to induct them in his government, but political
compulsions also dictate that the Opposition make an issue of their presence
in his Government. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has very little room for
manoeuvre in this tricky situation. The only man who can help is Laloo
Yadav, himself a tainted minister and the leader of the tainted lot. Yadav
has dug in his heels, and would not make Singh's task easier by voluntarily
stepping aside till he was cleared in the disproportionate assets case
and the fodder scam in which he was the prime accused. The Congress Party
needs Yadav. He has been its loyal ally long before the DMK and the NCP
gravitated towards it. On its part, the Opposition was not willing to let
go of the opportunity to embarrass the ruling combine, especially when
the Congress Party and the Left had boycotted the two Houses of Parliament
for a prolonged period protesting against the presence of George Fernandes
in the Vajpayee Government.
Unlike Laloo and Co., there really
was no serious charge of corruption against Fernandes. He was not involved
in any scam though the Opposition did try to drag him in rather unfairly
in the trumped up Tehelka controversy. Even in the so-called coffin scam,
Fernandes was in the clear as has become doubly evident from his challenge
to the United Progressive Alliance to investigate it to lay bare the truth.
No coffins were imported and no monies paid. But the then opposition led
by the Congress Party had sought to make a mountain out of a non-existent
molehill. Now that the NDA in opposition has trained its guns against the
tainted ministers in the Singh Government, the Congress Party spokesmen
are quite shame-facedly trying to make a molehill out of a huge mountain
of corruption and criminal charges against Laloo and his corrupt and criminal
lot. The ugly face-off will continue even when Parliament re-convenes for
its budget session later this month or early next month.
It is imperative that Singh, who
sets so much store by his own financial integrity, devised a compromise
formula to ensure that taxpayers'monies are not wasted on hon'ble members
without them performing their minimal task of debating and discussing the
urgent business of the nation. The onus is on the Prime Minister to allay
the fears of the Opposition in regard to the presence of the tainted ministers
in his government. He ought to take the initiative to end the stalemate.
His failure to break the parliamentary logjam would buttress the charge
that fundamentally he remains a quintessential bureaucrat who is uncomfortable
in his role as a politician. As Prime Minister he is called upon to tackle
diverse crises and the one the nation witnesses over the tainted ministers
was a relatively minor one. But Singh made no serious attempt to reach
out to the Opposition to try and find an amicable solution. Nor did he
bring to bear his considerable reputation for financial integrity to impress
on Yadav and Co. to bail out the Government out of a difficult situation.
Inaction and inertia in the face
of a crisis cannot be the prime ministerial response. He must find a way
out of the mess of his own making. Meanwhile, the megaphones of the Left,
usually quick to pontificate on various TV channels on all and sundry issues,
ought to exercise their influence on the Government to rid it of the mafia
dons and other criminal elements such as Taslimuddin and Shibu Soren, the
last named was named in a murder case. The silence of the Left is ominous
and underlines its willingness to co-exist with the corrupt and the criminal
for the sake of it gaining control over the levers of power in New Delhi.
