The Congress party has made a habit of doing the right thing after taking a first mis-step. The country saw that in both Jharkhand and Goa. Now Sonia Gandhi has shown once again the value of second thoughts. After the government suddenly got the two Houses of Parliament adjourned sine die (ie indefinitely), which is usually the precursor to their being prorogued, it was obvious that the objective of packing off Parliament must be to issue an Ordinance""which cannot be done when Parliament is in session. And the only matter that needed to be rushed through without delay and without debate was the business of preventing dozens of parliamentarians from being unseated because they had violated the ban on enjoying offices of profit while being members of either House. The plan got leaked to the media, everyone was outraged, and the ruling party faced the prospect of endless barracking""since Sonia Gandhi was herself involved as chairperson of the National Advisory Council. In the event, Ms Gandhi has seen the potential damage to her (if she could renounce the prime ministership, why not a mere Lok Sabha seat, as someone asked) and to the government, and has quickly defanged the Opposition by resigning from the House as well as from the Council. It would have been better if she had done this as the first step, when questions were raised about her chairmanship of the NAC. But to her credit, she has responded to the criticism and done the right thing. | |
| With the personality at the centre of the controversy out of the way, the issue remains since more than 40 MPs are in danger of losing their seats. At one level, it shows how much corruption of the system has taken place over the years, that so many MPs should be occupying offices of profit without anyone even noticing. But that is no reason for bailing out the MPs, and certainly not by Ordinance. If the law needs to be changed, it should be debated in the House. But if the government has come to the conclusion that the law needs to be so amended as to make it meaningless, it would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater""because that would open the floodgates for every government, now and in the future, at the Centre and in the states, to offer blandishments to every legislator with nuisance potential. It would be far better to use the present situation to assert the logic of the law. If 40 MPs out of 800 have to go as a result, then so be it. Elections take place all the time in this country, and 40 by-elections won't do a great deal of harm. It might even help the government test the waters and decide whether it wants to call a snap general election. |
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