Something very undemocratic is taking place in the world’s largest democracy that is India but the national debate continues to focus on Jawharlal Nehru University/Kanhaiya Kumar and Hyderabad Central University/Rohith Vemula. If this was a well-thought strategy by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) full marks to it because, sadly, the main opposition Congress Party, along with its new-found friends from the Left, has simply ceded ground and, for all practical purposes, surrendered.
Harish Rawat, the Congress chief minister of Uttarakhand, knew that his government was teetering after nine of his party members in the state assembly rebelled against his rule. These nine had threatened to vote against the proposals in the state’s budget which Finance Minister Indira Hridayesh had presented on March 11.
As he enjoyed only a wafer-thin majority in the 71-member house, Rawat knew that a division of votes on a money bill, which the budget is, would be the end of his government. So he got Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal to not only pass the budget by voice vote but also issue show cause notices to the rebel nine as to why they should not be disqualified under the anti-defection law.
Rawat may have resorted to undemocratic means to continue to stay in power but something more undemocratic was to follow, this time from the federal government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Just one day before Rawat was to test his government’s strength on the floor of the house as per directions of Governor Krishan Kant Paul, the Modi cabinet decided to impose President’s Rule on the state.
Article 356 of the Constitution provides for President’s Rule in a state in case of failure of the constitutional machinery. Yes, the constitutional machinery can be said to have failed if the Rawat government had failed to get the budget passed. In that case the Modi government would have been justified in calling for President’s Rule if Rawat himself had not resigned. The speaker is the ultimate authority as far as money bills are concerned and he had declared the budget passed after a voice vote. (Only a couple of weeks ago the BJP itself was waxing eloquent on the speaker’s powers when Finance Minister Arun Jaitley introduced the Aadhaar amendment bill as a money bill).
So, in reality, there was no constitutional crisis as such and a floor test, in any case, would have settled matters once and for all. But Modi went ahead and got the president to put the state assembly under suspended animation giving rise to speculation that the BJP is getting ready to engineer further defections from the Congress Party so as to stake claim to form the government. If Modi is really serious about constitutionality, he should now get the house dissolved and hold fresh elections at the earliest so that the people of the state can decide who should govern them.
As the defection drama unfolded in Dehradun, the Congress Party’s central leadership, especially its vice-president Rahul Gandhi, simply didn’t know how to react. It was left to Chief Minister Rawat to do all the talking and although he did articulate his point well, the Congress ‘high command’ did not seem to be too keen to fight on his behalf. Rawat has even paraded a majority of MLAs before the governor and has also gone to court but the presidential powers, according to experts, cannot be challenged.
Rahul Gandhi has been travelling to every nook and corner of the country every time there was a farmer suicide (of course he was careful not to include Congress-ruled Karnataka in that itinerary) and he had been visiting universities to speak up for students agitating against Modi’s so-called ultra-nationalist agenda. But all he did after the government imposed President’s Rule in Uttarakhand was to tweet a rather sarcastic one-liner to Modi even as his party indulged in the “national versus anti-national” debate with vehemence.
There is no doubt the Congress has a serious leadership crisis. All Rahul Gandhi has shown to be capable of is to coin some fanciful phrases like “suit-boot ki sarkar”, “fair and lovely yojana,” etc; which have an instant appeal for television anchors but almost immediately fade away as they hold no ideological or even logical significance. Except for one stirring speech by Jairam Ramesh in the Rajya Sabha while opposing the Aadhaar bill, there has been little contribution by the Congress in parliament because everyone in the party looks to Rahul Gandhi who, unfortunately, can barely string together two coherent sentences.
It is possible that Rahul Gandhi thinks he is a master orator. Otherwise why should he shy away from employing a good speech writer who can provide him with the right stuff that he can read from? There is no shame in it actually. Many top world leaders do so. Sonia Gandhi, for one, always has her speeches prepared. The lack of oratorical talents within the Congress, however, does not stop with the Gandhis though. Mallikarjun Kharge, who more often displays his language skills through pregnant pauses, is the party’s chief spokesperson in the Lok Sabha.
When Rahul Gandhi visited Kerala in February he famously told his party men that “only the Congress can defeat the Congress” in the state. It was a clear admission that the state unit was in disarray thanks to the various groups within the party. And what has he done about it? Precious little! The factions have only increased in number and strength so much so that the original Congress Party is nowhere in sight. Cynics feel there is such chaos in the party that all that the rival Left needs to do to regain power is to turn up for the upcoming elections.
Kerala is just one of the sad stories for the Congress. Reports say there is rebellion brewing in the Manipur unit of the party and the state is very likely to go the Arunachal Pradesh way in the near future. In Maharashtra, party stalwart and leader of the opposition in the state assembly, Balasaheb Vikhe Patil, piloted the motion that saw the suspension of AIMIM member Waris Pathan from the house for refusing to respect the motherland with the slogan “Bharat Mata ki Jai”. In the Madhya Pradesh assembly Congress leader Jitu Patwari moved a resolution to condemn AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi for his opposition to the same slogan. So much for control by the party’s central leadership which wants to project itself as the saviour of minorities.
Senior Congress leader and former finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram has often wondered why the BJP is not taking advantage of its massive majority in the Lok Sabha to push through ‘bold’ reforms. Perhaps the real question to be asked is why the BJP is taking so much time to act when the Congress can’t even put up a couple of good speakers to project its point of view.
The second leg of the budget session is when Jaitley hopes to get the crucial Goods and Services Tax (GST) bill passed. Jaitley feels that by the time the bill is presented the Congress Party’s Rajya Sabha numbers would have dwindled to some extent in the wake of fresh elections to the upper house and he could count on the rest of the opposition to support his bill for its passage. In the Lok Sabha he is sure to face some noise from the Congress but that will be all.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And what if the weakest link in the party happens to be its leader? Lord Meghnad Desai, economist, historian and long-time British parliamentarian, is of the view that the Congress Party is on the verge of further fragmentation thanks to Rahul Gandhi’s uninspiring leadership. No one, especially the younger lot, with serious ambition to get high up in the party would remain with the Congress, says Desai.
The year 2019 is not a long way away. It is not as if the Congress will win the next elections, but if it fails to put up a good fight against the BJP or any other opposition combination, you can safely assume that the party is over. There is little chance of a revival if it is losing state after state because of leadership apathy. No point blaming the BJP for engineering defections if you can’t put your own house in order.