The monsoon session has seen poor conduct and dismal performance from both the sides
So finally, who has emerged the vanquisher or the victim in the recently-concluded display of one-upmanship within the hallowed portals of Parliament? To a non-partisan and dispassionate observer, it is difficult to cross her/his heart and pass an honest opinion. For the divided polity of the ruling dispensation (which enjoys a brute majority in Parliament) and the raging members of the Opposition (which has barely started bearing one another’s company and started speaking in the same voice), though, the verdict is crystal clear: Each one of them sees itself as having undisputedly emerged the victor in the eyes of the nation’s people. While one side chose to blatantly showcase and use the might of its numbers in either House, often in a questionable manner, the other side didn’t take it lying down and chose to “protest and dance” on the secretary-general’s table in the Rajya Sabha, literally making a song and dance about the Government’s “mishandling” of the Opposition’s Members of Parliament as well as of the situation.
The final result of the stalemate, which had been playing out in both the Houses since the monsoon session got underway on July 19, is among the poorest performance for a session: The Lok Sabha clocked a productivity of just 21 per cent and the Rajya Sabha’s productivity was only a notch higher at 28 per cent. Both the Lower House and the Upper House may have been adjourned sine die (meeting ends with no scheduled day to get back together), the horse may have bolted, but the melodramatic saga continues. While Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla lamented that the House didn’t discuss important issues related to the nation’s people, Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu went a step forward and, shedding a tear, said that the unruly scenes had inflicted “incalculable damage to the dignity and stature” of the House. “I have no words to convey my anguish and to condemn such acts… I spent a sleepless night,” he poured forth his pain and disappointment thus. Meanwhile, the Opposition leaders, one after the other in a barrage, went hammer and tongs after the Government. So who is the winner, ultimately? The jury is still out on that one but one thing is clear: The biggest loser has been the electorate, the masses of India whose cause ironically both the sides claimed to have been championing.