Shame on them all

Out of power, the BJP was always a party too clever by half. Of this it repeatedly gave proof. On the Enron case it sought to take credit...

Out of power, the BJP was always a party too clever by half. Of this it repeatedly gave proof. On the Enron case it sought to take credit for winning good terms on the largest FDI proposal by trying to sabotage the project. It delighted in embarrassing P. Chidambaram on the Insurance Regulatory Authority of India Bill. The chickens have come home to roost, as eventually they must.

Vengeance though is not the motivating factor behind the IRA Bill finding its way to a joint standing committee of Parliament, after all, in what is surely a powerful anti-climax. Credit for that must go to the parties8217; shameless competitive politics, Congress being the villain this time round. Was it for this that the Prime Minister put his prestige on the line and took on his hopelessly divided party?

It cannot even be said unequivocally that one good outcome of this drama has been to clearly show up who the impediments to progress are so voters can take them to task. Parties which choose to behave with dishonour when they areout of government must be prepared to have done unto them what they did unto others. The Prime Minister may deserve credit for sticking his neck out on something that is good for India, particularly in the current gloomy economic environment and this government8217;s suspect economic notions.

But if the Congress has now chosen to play games it is not easy to single it out for contemptible conduct. It was the BJP which fired the first salvo in this battle, although it was the United Front government and not the Congress which was the victim of its manipulations.

There is a contrast between political motivations on the Women8217;s Reservation Bill and the IRA Bill which, if its implications were not quite so tragic, would be comic. The women8217;s Bill was a thing that no party wanted to touch with a bargepole. It was a Bill, nevertheless, for which each one of them was forced by the compulsions of politics to profess support.

So that Bill has finally found its way into Parliament, with accompanying shenanigans andall. This is not to say, by any means, that it will soon be law. The IRA Bill, on the other hand, has in-principle bipartisan, nay, tripartisan support. It was a logical progression of the Congress8217; policies. The UF government tried to introduce it in Parliament and was let down by the BJP. The BJP now has introduced it, only for it to go into cold storage. This has happened, with cruel symmetry, at the behest of the Congress party.

The Congress logic would seem to be that since they were the original proprietors of the idea, why let the BJP bag the credit, especially as they may have a shot at making it a law in the not too distant future? As long as the Bill looked sure to founder on the BJP8217;s own divisions, it was safe for the Congress to say it would vote for the Bill. What the party had not reckoned with was a wounded Prime Minister going on the offensive.

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It began to look as though the Bill would be tabled after all. Ergo, the Congress develops doubts about the Bill. The bottom line is that theIndian political spectrum will not let things get done either because its vested interests are threatened or because of shameless oneupmanship. Would that the Indian voter had the power to throw the lot of them out. Shame on them all.