Deve Gowda writes to Sonia Gandhi over Parliament stir

Former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda has written to former Congress President and Rajya Sabha MP Sonia Gandhi, expressing concern over “chaos” inside Parliament and its premises by Opposition parties, particularly by her party’s MPs.

“I strongly feel that Congress parliamentarians, led by the leader of the Opposition, have provided far too many disruptions inside Parliament and in its premises. Their dharnas and blockades outside Parliament are unprecedented. Parliament in recent times has witnessed an excess of slogan shouting, display of placards and name-calling,” Gowda said in a two-page letter.

Describing it as an attitude of non-seriousness, he said it has assaulted his very idea of the construct of Parliament and parliamentary democracy.

The nonagenarian Janata Dal (Secular) leader, whose son HD Kumaraswamy is minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises in the Narendra Modi Government, asked Sonia Gandhi to urge her party leaders and encourage a “return to parliamentary democracy”, using her political experience and guidance as one of the most senior leaders. “You can perhaps ask them not to harm themselves, their cause and their political futures, in the long run,” said the former PM.

Comparing his experience of running the Government at the Centre and as chief minister in Karnataka, he said the Opposition had always acted with the restraint that national interests demanded. “Even when they protested, they did not block the entrance to Parliament, make their gathering look like a tea-shop assembly, and worse, order tea, biscuits and pakoras, sitting on the steps of Parliament,” he said.

He expressed apprehensions that it may immensely harm the foundations of democracy and leave a trail of indelible bitterness.

“When the world over, democracies have had to manage enormous pressures with a delicate balance, the Opposition, I feel, should function with an awareness that their excess can cause immense harm to its very survival. In fact, they should be the guardians of parliamentary decorum, procedure and traditions.”

Asserting that his idea of parliamentary democracy has been built on lessons and guidance imparted by Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhai Patel, BR Ambedkar and Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, among others, he said that he had never witnessed Parliament in “such chaos and casualness that we have seen recently.”