PARLIAMENT BLUES

G B Sivanandam

Parliament democracy is becoming a thing of the past.  And it has been reiterated, authoritatively, in the recent inauguration ceremony of the new Parliament Complex.  The political one-upmanship of the narcissist was blatant and unsavoury while going through the ceremony. 

The President of the country as well as the Vice President were not found worthy of an invitation to the inaugural ceremony.  The ruling party’s think tank came up with a strange concept and blamed the opposition parties – who questioned the wisdom of ignoring the President – for opposing the candidature of Mrs. Droupadi Murmu for the President proposed by the BJP and now, crying foul for ignoring the President for the inauguration.  They conveniently ignore the fact that the opposition parties have a right to field a candidate opposite the candidate of the ruling party.  The most relevant question of why the President, an Adivasi and a Woman, was not invited to inaugurate the Parliament Complex is deliberately avoided and the BJP is into its political whataboutery – responding to an accusation by a counter-accusation – which has been the characteristic of the ruling party since 2014.  It would not be out of place to mention here that the former President Ramnath Kovind, a dalit, was ignored for the foundation stone laying ceremony which was done by the flamboyant personality himself as was the unveiling of the Lion Capital of Ashoka.

To promulgate themselves as the guardians of secularism, the ruling party allowed people of different religions to offer prayers according to their faiths during the inauguration of the Parliament Complex, WHEREAS, secularism really means keeping religions away from politics.  Though other religions were allowed to offer prayers, it was Hindutva all the way during the entire ceremony.  The inauguration took place on VD Savarkar’s birth anniversary, who was the proponent of Hindutva, and the national event was hijacked by the RSS at the expense of the nation.  This is an act of a bigotry besotted with the firm Hindutva ideology.

Not to be outdone by the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the tormentor and the political nemesis of our Prime Minister, the BJP installed the Sengol or sceptre, near the Speaker’s seat, which was handed over to the Prime Minister by about 30 pontiffs from different Adheenams in Tamil Nadu.  Such acts of political superstitions similar to monarchy has no place in a real democracy.

Finally, nothing is going to change in the new premises.  Parliament is a place where the voices of the elected representatives, more particularly that of the opposition parties should be heard. Without meaningful debates and adherence to constitutional provisions, the new Parliament Complex has been built with the increase in the number of Members of Parliament with the Hindi belt in mind, which, at present, is the only means and way that the BJP has to bank upon for its retention of power in the general elections next year.