No substitute to debate

Three days of the Monsoon Session of Parliament have already been wasted because of the Congress-led Opposition's unreasonable conduct. The Congress especially has taken a regressive and cynical approach, preventing Parliament from functioning. There is reason enough to worry that, if the trend continues, the session will be a complete washout. Key Bills necessary to kickstart the legislative process will remain pending, and it is the people who will ultimately have to pay the price. This is not to suggest that the Opposition should not raise issues that it thinks are important and just go along with the Treasury benches on all accounts. It is the Opposition's duty to keep a check on the ruling entity and highlight instances of irregularities.

However, it needs to do so in a constructive manner. In the Sushma Swaraj-lalit Modi controversy, for example, the Opposition is perfectly within its rights to raise a hue and cry and even demand the resignation of the Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj as well as Chief Minister of Rajasthan Vasundhara Raje. However, when the former has repeatedly said that she would like to make a statement on the issue on the floor of the House to give her version of the story, then it is only in the fairness of things that she be allowed to speak. After Ms Swaraj has made the statement, the House is free to debate and discuss the issue at length and eventually come to a decision. That the Congress has been so obstinate in its refusal to even give Ms Swaraj a chance to put forth her point of view, only exposes the party's underlying motives. On Thursday, party vice president Rahul Gandhi made it clear that, unless there were resignations, the Congress will not allow any discussion. This makes no sense. Clearly, the Congress does not care about the issue at hand — had that been the case, it would have given Ms Swaraj an opportunity to issue a statement, which could then have been argued threadbare. 

Also, the Congress's refusal to talk on the subject only furthers the suspicion that it does not have a strong case against Ms Swaraj and others. The lead Opposition is merely milking the issue for whatever its worth. This is also evident in Mr Gandhi's insistence that Prime Minister Narendra Modi make a statement on not just the Swaraj-Modi controversy but also the Vyapam corruption scandal that has brought Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan under the scanner. Again, this demand has no leg to stand on, because the Prime Minister is not involved in any of the cases. But the Congress wants him to speak because that adds some gravitas to the issues and makes them seem bigger than they are. Evidently, this is all about the optics of opposition rather than the substance of it.  

The Congress's primary aim is to pick up any issue and use it as an excuse to stonewall all efforts of the Government to run the country. If in the process, a senior Cabinet Minister can be brought under the shadow of suspicion and maybe even compelled to quit office, giving the ruling coalition a bad name, then that's the icing on the cake. In doing so, if the Congress wastes precious parliamentary, it appears par for the course for the party.