Opposition parties could have acted differently in the winter session: Manoj Jha

RJD MP Manoj Jha said that the issue of suspension of 12 Rajya Sabha MPs could have been resolved as the chairman of the house was more than willing to do so. But there was a lack of effort from both the government and the opposition. He also said that smaller parties like RJD get very limited time and space to express their views and fight for their people and if that small window of the parliament is also blocked by disruptions the smaller parties feel lost. Here is an excerpt from his exclusive interaction with Kumar Anshuman of ET.

When the session began it looked like both the government and the opposition were equally willing to discuss issues in parliament. But once again the session was a wash out.
The first day of the session began with the suspension of 12 MPs. Normally we didn’t see that. If you go through the rule book, we have not seen any example of an incident which happened in the previous session, was taken into this session.

But what worried us and not only us but the entire India was that parliament was perceived to be a manifestation of democratic ethos of this country. That manifestation has been blackened by this kind of approach. Parliamentary democracy everywhere runs on a premise that the ruling party has to take one extra step. Then there is a pressure on the opposition that if the ruling party has taken a step we must respond. That one step was conspicuously missing, giving a kind of feeling in many of us that probably the government in the winter session didn’t want the parliament to function.

But the government is saying that it was ready for discussion on issues. It was the opposition which was in no mood and that tied the hands of the government.
This is not how parliamentary democracy works. I have been saying that in 1952, 1956 or 1962, the opposition was very small, yet you read the deliberation, yet you see the time allocated, yet you look at the approach of the ruling party. That was much more accommodative than what we see now. It is becoming a kind of farce.

Why was there a deadlock over the suspension of 12 MPs.

The chairman was very keen to resolve the issue and he kept on giving direction to both the ruling party and the opposition. He even gave a basic tutorial as to how it can be resolved giving instances of the past. But I think probably the ruling party was not in the mood to understand. The chair depends on a thread of connectivity between the ruling party and the opposition. If that thread is conspicuously missing or the parties have decided not to care for that thread, the chair can’t do much.

The onus to some extent is also on the opposition parties.

I totally agree. As an opposition party we could have done it differently and resolved it. History will teach both sides as to how things could have been done and what we didn’t do. People don’t send us to the parliament to see that the deadlock continues for days together. While the greater responsibility is of the ruling party but at same time the opposition also should not take disruption as a valid parliament strategy. It could have been valid in 2011-12 and that was a different time. Here when you have a government which is not willing to jettison its arrogance, I think you should utilise whatever space which is available to you to expose the government.

Many parties in the opposition wanted to see things differently. I am sharing with you. Had Arun Jaitley been there he would not have taken time in resolving this. The most important takeaway is that if you genuinely wish to run the parliament according to the wishes of the people, the chemistry between the ruling party and the opposition should be better.

A division was visible in the opposition camp too. There was a kind one upmanship playing among big opposition parties.

When the parliament was envisaged, the idea was the passion outside the house shouldn’t have any reflection in the house. The brutal division in the society shouldn’t speak itself almost daily in the parliament. Right now, the division outside has led to division within the house. What I have seen there used to be certain points of contradiction between the political parties, which one can understand.

There were contractions within political parties and those contradictions were much more visible on certain days.

What about the one upmanship of opposition parties. The opposition seems to be divided in two camps led by Congress and Trinamool Congress.

Every political party has the right and prerogative to enhance its footprints. We wish them good luck. But your idea of enhancing the footprints shouldn’t result in a situation where the best footprints in parliamentary discourse are lost. You might fight outside and contest elections against each other. But never allow that politics to disturb the political rhythm of unity inside the house.

We also have ambitions, and our leader is also visiting Jharkhand to enhance our footprints. But the constitution and idea of parliamentary democracy comes first. In one upmanship in this kind of competitive environment let’s not ruin whatever shades of democracy and democratic discourse are available to us.

You mean to say it was Trinamool Congress which was more responsible for the division in the opposition camp.
I wouldn’t like to name any political party. It is a responsibility of all the parties in opposition, even those which are currently comfortable with the BJP but the discomfort is slowly emerging whether it is Telangana or Andhra. For larger parliamentary discourse you must set aside your outside politics and come to the house with a sense of unity.

In this fight between the government and the opposition, there were some important bills like the Election Amendment Bill, linking Voter ID to Aadhar which got passed. The opposition might have participated in the discussion and have walked out during the voting if they thought so.
We all felt very bad. This is one bill that might lead to compromise in our electoral process. We know the biggest beneficiary of the electoral bonds is BJP. Now data shall be the monopoly and we all know the importance of this data. It invades privacy. Now these issues we could have raised but we couldn’t. Disruptions make a headline the next day that the government passed the bill and the opposition boycotted. People didn’t get to know what the opposition view was. A larger message to the ruling party but a smaller message is also to the opposition that we are passing through a very difficult time, a kind of dark tunnel and in a dark tunnel if we all must always work hard to have a source of light. If we chose that source of light that is parliament, we don’t have much option left.

Where do smaller parties like RJD stand in this big opposition divide?

We are a small party with five members in the Rajya Sabha. But we are the single largest party in Bihar. There have been very important issues particularly, caste-based census. It is not only in the interest of RJD or any political party but in the interest of the people of this country. A huge majority of people and their socioeconomic status is not known. We needed parliament as a platform to raise those issues. My leader Lalu Prasad Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav are very keen that parliament should debate the grant of special status to Bihar. Even if there are new standards that don’t allow a special status, there are parties from the south supporting us that Bihar needs special status. Many times, we feel lost because we didn’t get time in this session or previous session. Smaller parties like us get very little time and if that is also lost, we feel helpless. Bigger parties have other platforms also but smaller parties have limited space. Disruption should not be the norm. Disrupt for an hour. Agitation and anguish have to find expression in parliament. But it shouldn’t be prolonged.