Talk it out

On December 10, when Parliament reconvenes, the most absurd thing about the session will be that by some over-compensation for climate change, it will still be part of the Monsoon Session. But nomenclature apart, that will be a tricky fortnight for MPs and the presiding officers of the two Houses. They will meet less than 48 hours after the results of the assembly elections come in, and the results will have sorted out political parties between those that draw triumphalism from the verdict and those made anxious about what it could foreshadow. It may also not help that this would anyway be as close to a lame duck session as a parliamentary democracy gets, with the one certainty being that elections will now be less than six months away.

But these limitations could in fact liberate the presiding officers into exploring innovations to make the fortnight meaningful. The timeframe suggests that there is nothing that the Opposition could do now to deprive the government of the advantage of calling elections when it sees fit. Equally, the ruling coalition must realise its stake in seeing that Parliament conducts substantive business. Governments in the last days of their term often struggle to summon legitimacy to take tough decisions. The backdrop of a civil, engaging fortnight in Parliament can give them a fair bit of legitimacy. This is perhaps an opportunity for the speaker of the Lok Sabha and the chairman of the Rajya Sabha to call all-party meets to achieve consensus on how to gain valuable debates.

This is especially important in the current context. On two very important issues we have had the two leading coalitions 8212; the Congress-led UPA and the BJP-led NDA 8212; speaking at each other. The first is the financial crisis, begun in the United States but now threatening enough Indians: some with the prospect of falling net worth, others with the possibility of pay cuts, if not outright job losses. As these columns have emphasised, the government has begun to be forthcoming about how it plans to see out the worst and the opposition has come up with valuable suggestions. Parliament is still the best venue for them to engage in conversation. Similarly, on internal security, and most particularly anti-terrorism investigations, the politics is getting too divisive. It will be a sad confirmation of Parliament8217;s fading relevance as a talking shop if next month we do not get any civilised debates on this issue in the two Houses.