'25 Bills passed in 21 minutes': United in opposition, but a divided House

With the Centre zipping through Bills, Ordinances, and laws unchallenged, a seemingly united Opposition is feeling a little piqued'

With all indications that the monsoon session of Parliament will end on Tuesday instead of Friday, as previously planned because the Opposition is clear it will not let the two Houses function until the government agrees to a debate, the controversy over the tapping of phones of many public figures, including some who are now Union ministers, spells a washout of the session. It also compromises the political positions of many actors sitting on the fence.
 
“It is not that we don’t want to let Parliament function” said Ghanshyam Tiwari, spokesman for the Samajwadi Party (SP), adding, “We want to add our voice to policy-making. Fact is, the government has lost our trust.”

 
He says with the Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United), or JD(U) - which now has a minister in the Union Cabinet - joining the Opposition ranks and lending its support to the proposition that the government has invaded people’s privacy, the Opposition’s case is stronger than before.
 

“There are two parallel processes on: the Supreme Court has said our allegations are se­ri­ous; and we’re saying in Parliament our privacy has been compromised. Surely that should be reason enough for the government to pay attention to what we’re saying,” adds Tiwari.
 
The government is equally clear that it has spelt out its position on the floor of the House and has nothing further to add. The statement by Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw stated on record that the legal architecture to prevent the government from listening in on phone conversations is so comprehensive and complex that it is well nigh impossible to breach privacy on the scale the Opposition is alleging. The Opposition could have used the statement to ask questions, grill the government, and used other parliamentary devices to cross-question it. It instead chose to resort to violence — snatching papers, breaking glass windows, and shouting slogans.

 
But ‘trust’ is hard to quantify. And with a united parliamentary Opposition, the government is zipping through Bills, Ordinances, and laws unchallenged, making the most of it - something the Opposition bitterly resents.
 
“Twenty-five Bills were passed in less than 21 minutes. Bills have been passed in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha (RS) without discussion. If this continues, democracy will end. This autocratic behaviour has never been seen. The government is moving towards Ordinances. The business advisory committee has become like a general store. We wanted to discuss price hike, Covid, but those were not discussed," said Trinamool Congress (TMC) Member of Parliament (MP) Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar.

 
“The biggest factor in our favour is our unity,” declared Tewari.
 
But is the Opposition really that united?
 
JD(U) might have come out in the open against its ally. But the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), also an ally of the National Democratic Alliance, is quiet. Local elections are on in Odisha and the BJD is fighting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bitterly on the ground, unconcerned by issues, such as snooping.
 
With six MPs in the RS, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam is yet to spell out its stand on the Pegasus controversy. Also on the fence are the Telangana Rashtra Samithi and the YSR Congress. They are neither with the government, nor with the Opposition.

 
The party in the worst pickle is the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). It is looking at an election in a few months in Punjab. It used to be a partner of the Union government. But not only has the BJP been complicit in passing farm laws (which it does not want to discuss now), but worse, is also listening in on phone conversations. Defending its association with the BJP is now impossible for SAD. But equally impossible is allying with the Congress, which is the chief challenger and in power in Punjab.
 
To prove that they are the real opposition, SAD joined hands with the Bahujan Samaj Party, with whom it has an alliance in Punjab, the Left parties, and others to take a delegation to meet the President of India and hand over a memorandum about how the government is not listening to the Opposition. SAD is in an unenviable position — not only is the government not listening to it, neither is the Opposition.

 
Whatever the extra-parliamentary contradictions of the Opposition (TMC versus the Congress in Bengal, SP versus the Congress in Uttar Pradesh and so on), the parliamentary Opposition is united. The key question, however, is: Does it even matter?