Playing with the system

It doesn't need great wisdom or political sagacity to argue that the government is in the wrong by persisting with tainted ministers who have been charge sheeted by the courts.

There is no technical bar against Lalu Prasad continuing in office, since the law says that you are innocent until proven guilty; and a charge sheet is not a judicial verdict.

However, given the way our legal system operates (and the problem is not just the inordinate delays), it is fair to argue that the framing of charges is after all some form of indictment, and in the interest of propriety the minister concerned should resign.

If he does not, the Prime Minister should drop him from the Cabinet. Both Mr Prasad and Manmohan Singh are setting wrong precedents that will come back to haunt both them and the political system.

It is understandable in this game if an embarrassed government seeks to turn the spotlight on the previous set of ministers, but this is a never-ending cycle of make-believe since nothing ever comes out of the inquiries.

What will the Central Bureau of Investigation find out by questioning Jaya Jaitley that it did not already know? George Fernandes as defence minister in the NDA government ordered an inquiry into all defence deals done for many years before his taking office, and now the tables are being turned.

Next it may be the turn of Praful Patel and the aircraft deals. If any government today or tomorrow were to get even one conviction out of all this drama, some purpose would be served.

But that is no defence of the way the main Opposition has been behaving. If a boycott of Parliament over the presence of tainted ministers can extend from three days to the rest of the session, why not boycott future sessions as well?

Indeed, why not boycott the House till the next elections? And if the people in the treasury and Opposition benches trade places, then the new Opposition can boycott the next House till another election is called.

Is that what a parliamentary Opposition is supposed to do-merely because an official in the Prime Minister's office said something? And what would happen if one fine day the treasury benches decided to boycott Parliament in protest against the presence of "tainted" Opposition members? For these""as the case of Mr Fernandes shows""also abound.

While no one can deny the Opposition's right to protest about anything it wants to, the citizen surely has the right to question the mode of protest. The short point is that not attending Parliament is an inferior substitute for making a fuss inside it.

As the Speaker very reasonably said, if the Opposition has a bone to pick, it should do so in Parliament instead of running away. In taking an extreme form of protest beyond sensible limits, the NDA does itself no credit. And no one gains if Parliament is reduced to a sham.