The most interesting feature of Shashi Tharoor’s letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, leaked to the media last Friday evening, is not what it tells us about the Kerala MP’s vulnerability or indeed about the difficulties of reconciling personal beliefs with the party line. To my mind, the letter is a pointer to the huge importance the Congress president attaches to her party’s sustained disruption of parliamentary proceedings. By reducing Tharoor to the status of an isolated maverick, first on July 22, and then following it up with the release of a letter that reinforces his status as an oddity in the hurly-burly of politics, the Congress Establishment is actually signalling its complete unwillingness to review its policy of unwavering parliamentary disruption.
Yet, the mere fact that the Congress leadership felt it incumbent to forcefully convey this political message -albeit by using the hapless Tharoor as a punching bag-after nearly two weeks of unrelenting disruption, tells another story.
When the Congress took the decision to disrupt the Monsoon Session of Parliament, but particularly the Rajya Sabha, until it had three politically-dismembered heads under its belt, many of the party’s more experienced MPs believed that the whole thing would blow over after about a fortnight. There were three reasons for their belief that the disruption shouldn’t be seen as anything more than some perverse quality time for the Opposition.
First, it was clear that the initial media momentum behind the two scandals that had singed the BJP was rapidly dissipating, and being fast replaced by other concerns such as the execution of Yakub Memon and the growing cross-border belligerence of Pakistan.
Had the lalit Modi scandal and new developments on the Vyapam front happened when Parliament was in session, a sustained hullaballoo would have been justified. At a pinch it may have even forced a resignation. However, the generous gap between Arnab Goswami first going ballistic and the Parliament session allowed the Government to think its strategy through carefully. The difficulties of firing on all cylinders for a sustained period was apparent when, for example, some TV channels seamlessly switched tack from demanding the instant resignation of Messrs Sushma Swaraj, Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Singh Chouhan to outrage over why Parliament wasn’t being allowed to function. Experienced Congress MPs had realised much earlier what later became plain to the merchants of indignation.
Second, the hard-nosed practitioners of politics know the dangers of peaking too soon and plumbing the depths of adventurism. The Modi Government may not be at the peak of its May 2014 popularity but 14 months is just too short a time to wage total frontal war against a Government that has a clear majority in the lok Sabha, and whose position in the Rajya Sabha will improve considerably by 2016.
Moreover, there was nothing in the offing to accord the Congress an opportunity to demonstrate that it was regaining its lost support. The first state that the Congress can realistically hope to regain in the short term is Punjab where Assembly elections aren’t due till the summer of 2016. No wonder the more battle-hardened veterans were suggesting that the party keep its powder dry in the interregnum and focus on asymmetric, low-intensity warfare.
Finally, the importance of the Monsoon Session of Parliament stems from its ability to either secure or delay the Goods and Services Tax. Passing it through both Houses of Parliament by mid-August could conceivably have ensured that the GST Act is taken to the State Assemblies for the mandatory ratification. Any delay will mean that GST does not come into operation by April 1, 2016, a setback that will have implications for an economy struggling to regain composure.
It is not merely the Government that wants GST operational by the coming financial year; the industry too is understandably anxious. Indeed, the Congress is under sustained pressure from its well-wishers in the business world to cooperate with the Government on this limited point.
That all these fairly common sense political calculations have not tempered the Congress leadership’s determination to wage total war on the Modi Government is very revealing. In ticking off Tharoor, Sonia wasn’t telling a flamboyant MP to fall in line. For all his undeniable achievements, the UN apparatchik-turned-politician is still too much of a lightweight to be taken that seriously. In snubbing Tharoor, Sonia was actually telling the group of MPs who are sceptical of the timing and scale of the artillery fire that it is she who calls the shots. More to the point, she has let it be known that nothing short of visceral opposition is what is to be expected.
Whether this hard-line is linked in any way to the succession plans she has in mind and need to brush away all possible cobwebs in the path of Rahul Gandhi is worth considering. But otherwise, Sonia’s unrelenting hostility to the Government is based on two calculations. First, there is the determination to ensure that the BJP falls flat on its face in the Bihar Assembly elections of October-November 2015. Second, there is also a belief that Modi must not be allowed to undertake measures that will lead to an economic revival whose true effects will be felt by the time the general election is held in 2019.
Stalling the GST by an extra year, directing Congress-controlled State Governments to be extra obstructive, encouraging the remaining Congress-appointed functionaries in different posts to throw a spanner in the works and doing its utmost to create economic and political bottlenecks-these appear to be the Congress’ overall approach aimed at making the Government dysfunctional.
According to Constitutional principles, the task of the Government is to govern and the role of the Opposition is to be a critical watchdog, articulating concerns that haven’t been accommodated. Disrupting the normal process of democracy has been added on to the list. If the Congress leadership has its way, India democracy may well resemble Bangladesh-a country where the Government and Opposition are always in the throes of a no-holds-barred war. Maybe the BJP showed recklessness in the ten years it was in Opposition but the conflict is being taken to new heights today.