Opinion Maximum parties

The Congress’s insistence that the House can function only after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan quit office prevented Parliament from working. (Express Photo)

The monsoon session of Parliament is most likely to end on Thursday without having transacted any worthwhile business. The government, expectedly, blames the Opposition, primarily the Congress, for the logjam. Indeed, the Congress’s insistence that the House can function only after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan quit office prevented Parliament from working. But did the government reach out to the Congress to end the stalemate? Did the BJP’s floor managers seek the help of the rest of the Opposition to engage the Congress? All the ruling party did was to reciprocate the aggression that the main opposition party displayed, when it could have taken the lead towards a rapprochement. If the monsoon session is a washout, the blame ought to be shared by both parties.

That the non-Congress Opposition may not be in complete agreement with the Congress’s strategy became evident when Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav called for an end to the logjam in the House on Monday. Talk, not stall, was Yadav’s advice to the Congress. It makes eminent sense, even if the SP leader had backed the Congress’s strategy of stalling the House until the other day. Yadav may well have spoken for most of the Opposition, which has grown weary of the impasse. This newspaper, too, called for the resignation of Swaraj and Raje for their role in the Lalit Modi affair, but the running of Parliament cannot become incumbent on their remitting office. The Lalit Modi controversy and the Vyapam scam are serious issues that call for extensive debate in Parliament. With the House in limbo, the government is under no pressure to explain the conduct of the people it is defending in Parliament. The Congress should rethink its strategy of holding up the House to force resignations. A host of crucial issues, from the goods and services tax bill to repealing the death penalty, await the attention of our MPs.

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Could the speaker’s office have helped break the logjam, as Yadav suggested? With the big two parties stuck in a rut, the speaker ought to have tried to talk them out of their maximalist positions. Unfortunately, the decision to temporarily suspend 25 Congress MPs for disrupting the Lok Sabha foreclosed her leverage. In a season of undue aggression and hostility, a peacemaker proved to be elusive, and the session is a casualty.