By
Shameem Faizee
The
last Winter Session of this Lok Sabha will start on December 11. Normally the
last full session of the House is utilised by the Opposition to set the
political agenda for the coming general elections and the ruling party tries to
list its achievements during the tenure. But that happens in the normal
circumstances. Under the Narendra Modi regime, we are facing extra-ordinary
situation. During the past four and half years, more than the opposition, it
was the ruling combination that caused disruption of the proceedings of the
House, particularly in the Lower House.
Under
Modi, it is the BJP led NDA that caused the maximum disruption of the
proceedings of the House. Rajya Sabha, where the ruling combination does not
have majority on its own, no serious debate on important socio-political and
economic issues was allowed. The members of the ruling party behaved like
opposition. Besides, the government misused different rules and norms to
by-pass the Upper House. Important legislations like Aadhar Act were converted
into money bill to avoid their presentation in the Upper House. Office of the
Speaker was misused to deprive opposition any opportunity to enlist the
failures and miss-management of the government. During the last session, even a
no-confidence motion was not allowed though it had the support of the requisite
numbers.
Besides,
to avoid discussion on serious socio-economic issues, the ruling combination
always wrecked up sentimental issues pertaining to caste and communal
differences. For the Narendra Modi government, the issue of triple talaq among
Muslims was a more important gender equality issue than the passage of the bill
for 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament and assemblies.
The
Winter Session of the Parliament is not going to be different as far as the
issues to be debated are concerned. As number of cases of corruption and
mismanagement of economy have come to light during the past few months,
government will try to see that these issues are not even mentioned in the
House. Rafale deal is one such corruption case in which the prime minister
himself is directly involved.
He
is avoiding answering two simple questions about the corruption. Why he decided
to pay three times more the price for Rafale jet than what was finalised by the
previous government. Similarly by dropping a public sector company HAL and
favouring crony capitalist Anil Ambani for looting Rs. 30,000 core of the
public money, Modi has committed another crime. There is a list of A to Z of
the corruption cases of the BJP governments at the centre and in states.
Then
there are revelations about the two economic blunders of the Modi regime. Now
even those who were part of the government including various government
departments and ministries have started admitting that the demonetisation was a
disaster and had nothing to do with the claims made about unearthing black
money or blocking funding of terrorism. Demonetisation has been used to whiten
the black money of the ruling party and its cronies.
Similarly,
the hasty implementation of the GST has resulted in more hardships on small and
medium traders as well as imposition of undue taxes on common people. While the
Corporate houses have been given concessions by reducing income tax rates for
them, the common people have been burdened with GST, that is the biggest
onslaught in the form
of indirect taxes.
Last
week, farmers from all over the country were on the streets of the national
capital to draw the attention to the disaster faced by agriculture. Though the
captive media ignored this farmers’ march, the social media did the justice and
the people echoed the demand that there should be a special session of
Parliament to discuss the agriculture crisis. Will Modi government allow the
winter session of Parliament to debate these crucial issues that affects
majority?
Similarly,
the issue of unemployment is getting focussed but there is no organized move to
draw the nations’ attention to this burning issue affecting our younger
generation. There are scores of such issues that need urgent debate in
Parliament.
But
Modi government has made it clear that it will continue to distract people’s
attention from serious socio-economic issues by using the weapon of political
sentimentalism or sentimental politics. Its mentor, RSS and its various wings,
have already created the issue of Bulandshahar. The murder of a police
inspector by the Sanghi mob needs to be treated as a conspiracy and exposed.
But it should not be at the cost of debate on much more serious socio-economic
issues in Winter Session of Parliament.
(IPA Service)
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