Undermining parliamentary process

A RAILWAY BUDGET passed without a hint of discussion and within the space of a stormy few minutes. The possibility of the Finance Bill being passed this week in a similar and just as deplorable a manner. In their blatant disregard for the functioning of Parliament, the country's political class has touched a new low. To have passed a railway budget by a hasty voice vote is to make a mockery of Parliament, the highest policy-making body in the country and the very cornerstone of our democracy. In the circumstances, it is difficult to conceive of what other alternatives there were before the Lok Sabha Speaker given the Constitutional obligation of approving the railway budget within a specific time-frame. Indeed, Mr. G. M. C. Balayogi, who has expressed anguish over the turn of events, was caught between a rock and a hard place. Faced with an obdurate Government which has handled the fallout of the Tehelka expose with a complete lack of candour as well as tact, on the one hand, and confronted with a couple of Opposition parties (the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal) which seem hell-bent on paralysing Parliament at any cost, the Speaker's task, to say the very least, was extremely awkward.

The stalemate, a manifestation of the lack of even a semblance of consensus between the Government and the principal Opposition party, now threatens to affect the manner in which other financial business is dealt with - the most important being the Finance Bill which is scheduled to be passed on April 25. As matters stand, unless the Congress and the RJD are prepared to delink the discussion over the budget from their demands relating to the Tehelka expose, Parliament may suffer the unprecedented ignominy of witnessing the Finance Bill passed by a hasty voice vote and amidst unseemly pandemonium. It is the duty of every political party to ensure that this does not happen and it is imperative that some kind of agreement is arrived at towards this end. A smoothly functioning Parliament is the sine qua non of democracy and it will be a matter of enormous shame if political expediency continues to prevail over political common sense. Sadly, until now the latter has completely overridden the former.

The Congress, which has been demanding the setting up of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) as a pre-condition for permitting Parliament to function, has altered track somewhat. Having maintained that any debate on the Tehelka expose must follow the setting up of a JPC, it has given a notice for discussion (which includes voting) in the Rajya Sabha where the Opposition enjoys a clear majority. The move is clearly aimed at embarrassing or exposing the BJP-led Government which would prefer to discuss the Tehelka expose in the Lok Sabha, where it has a larger number of MPs. It is a game of numbers, another illustration of the hypocrisy and opportunism which has characterised the manner in which both sides have dealt with the Tehelka tapes issue. The Tehelka expose has raised a number of important issues but the question now is whether the smooth functioning of Parliament should continue to be disrupted because of it. The demand for the constitution of a JPC, given the persistence with which the Opposition has sought it, is something that deserves to be debated, in both the lower and the upper Houses though with setting up of a commission of enquiry the demand has lost some of its force. But the important thing now is to ensure that Parliament - the proceedings of which have been stalled for an extraordinary long and painful period - is no longer held hostage to short-sighted and opportunistic party politics.

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Section  : Opinion
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