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Journalism of Courage
As Parliament remained disrupted for the third day, primarily over the Congress’s demand for a discussion on the Adani bribery controversy, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has charted an independent course. The third-largest Opposition party, the TMC has suggested it wants the House to function so that important issues concerning people can be raised and discussed.
The ties between the TMC and the Congress have been strained ever since the 2021 Assembly elections in West Bengal in which the grand old party and the Left fought against the Mamata Banerjee-led party in alliance. The Congress and the Left had an alliance in the Lok Sabha elections as well, prompting Banerjee, the TMC chairperson and West Bengal Chief Minister, to distance her party from the INDIA bloc.
Inside Parliament though, both the parties have been working together. The TMC has now signalled that the Adani issue, which the Congress had been raising vociferously, is not on its agenda. It also wants Parliament to run and Question Hour to be held as it believes the government should be held accountable.
While Congress members have been giving notices in both Houses to suspend all business to discuss the indictment of industrialist Gautam Adani in the US in a case of alleged bribery, other Opposition MPs have been demanding discussion on issues ranging from the volatile situation in Manipur and the violent clashes in Sambhal to the need for special assistance to address the plight of the people of Wayanad who were affected by a series of landslides in July.
Sources in the TMC said the party’s leadership had identified five issues that it wants to be discussed in both Houses of Parliament. These issues are inflation, unemployment, deprivation of housing and other funds for West Bengal, fertiliser shortage, and violence in Manipur. Missing from the agenda is the Adani indictment.
“We want Parliament to run. We don’t want one issue to disrupt Parliament. We must hold this government accountable for multiple failures,” said TMC Lok Sabha MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar. The TMC, she said, would “sharply focus on ‘people’s issues’ in Parliament.” She said the TMC would take on the BJP “but our outlook on how to take on the BJP can be strategically different”.
When short-seller Hindenburg Research’s report on alleged malpractices by the Adani Group came out in January 2023, the Opposition had united around a demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) report into the allegations. But later, cracks developed within the Opposition front on the issue, with the TMC and the Left backing a Supreme Court-monitored probe. Nationalist Congress Party (SP) chief Sharad Pawar had also subsequently disassociated his party from the demand for a JPC.
