Monsoon session washout with lok sabha adjourned sine die country’s crises fail to get policy attention and remedies

Monsoon session washout with lok sabha adjourned sine die country’s crises fail to get policy attention and remedies

It is extremely unfortunate that the Lok Sabha has been adjourned sine die two days ahead of the end of the Monsoon session. While government is citing the ruckus created by opposition MPs as the reason for cutting the session short, non-NDA parties have been accusing the government of avoiding proper discussion on issues such as the three farm bills, rising fuel prices and the Pegasus snooping revelations. On Tuesday, unruly scenes were witnessed in the Rajya Sabha when opposition MPs even climbed atop the table where officers and reporters of the house are seated. This compelled Rajya Sabha chair Venkaiah Naidu to express anguish over the denigration of the sanctity of the house.

That said, it is the responsibility of both the government and opposition to run Parliament. While opposition MPs are certainly to blame for disrupting proceedings, it is also true that the government made little effort to properly discuss farm reforms, Pegasus or the economy. The net result is that the country has lost an opportunity to focus policy attention on critical matters. At a time when the economy has been ravaged by Covid and the society has been devastated by the pandemic’s second wave — with fears of a third wave around the corner — the country’s lawmakers have wasted taxpayers’ money in scoring political brownie points and showboating.

In fact, the opposition missed a trick by choosing to disrupt Parliament rather than put the government on the mat through probing discussions on Covid and economy. The government of course was more than happy to escape scrutiny. But if Parliament is to degenerate into sessions of competitive disruptions — BJP would most likely take the same course should it come to sit in opposition in future — then there are dark days ahead for Indian democracy. All parties must realise that their competitive populism is eroding the country’s institutions. The Parliament can’t become a wrestling akhada.