Anand K Sahay

Observers here find it hard to fathom the tactics of the country’s principal opposition parties which appear set on establishing mores that are alien to the very spirit of the Westminster system that is at the heart of Indian democracy.

The BJP and its alliance partners of the NDA have boycotted parliament for most of the budget session, the longest in the Indian parliamentary calendar, that ended last week.

The extraordinary pattern of behaviour has elicited concern from the Speaker and the prime minister, taunts from the ruling UPA, and anguish from the media. But none of this seemed to matter a whit.

But there has already been a price to pay. The Telugu Desam Party, a critical NDA supporter right through the six-year Vajpayee rule and for a year since the BJP-led alliance was thrown into the opposition, decided to return to parliament, severing its NDA association.

The party may well have other basic reasons for doing so; it is looking for ways to revive the Third Front in partnership with the Left and some parties that are currently swimming with the Congress-led UPA.

Initially, the NDA’s boycott seemed a parliamentary tactic, a means of protest to draw attention to “tainted” ministers in the cabinet and to demand that the prime minister

evict them from the council of ministers.

That was just fine. But it began to appear by and by that by avoiding parliament the NDA parties were seeking to shield themselves, rather than pushing the government parties on the back foot.

The parliament business was throwing up discussion on controversial defence purchases during the NDA term in office, in particular involving the then defence minister George Fernandes. UPA also seemed to be gunning for Arun Shourie, the Disinvestment minister in the Vajpayee government, for his alleged role in the sale of two Mumbai hotels, though Shourie has enjoyed a reputation as a man of integrity and a crusading journalist.

More, right through the boycott, NDA’s driving force, the BJP, appeared to be paralysed by a deep identity crisis after a no holds barred attack on it by none other than K S Sudarshan, the supremo of the RSS, the Hindutva fountainhead from which the BJP springs.

From the look of things, NDA is unlikely to be ready to return to parliament during the monsoon session in July. The BJP’s woes are unlikely to go away by then. Controversial issues pertaining to the NDA regime are also unlikely to die down by July.

Relations between the government and the key sections of the opposition appears very strained. This can hardly make for democratic debate and functioning. As a consequence of the boycott, all the discussion on policy has taken on a Left versus non-Left hue.

This has tended to limit discourse to economic matters which appears to be the chief concern of the Left parties. This can hardly be to the good of a large country where development has many dimensions and the way ahead in a fast-paced world requires negotiating a complex matrix of concerns.

Sahay, a journalist, writes for THT from New Delhi