As it reconvened on Monday (March 10) after the customary Budget Session recess, Parliament got off to a stormy start in both Houses.
The Lok Sabha saw heated exchanges between DMK MPs and Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the Tamil Nadu government’s vociferous resistance to implementing the ‘three-language formula’. In the Rajya Sabha, the Opposition staged a brief walkout protesting over a range of issues, including “discrepancies in and manipulation of voter lists” and the impending delimitation exercise.
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Tepid support to DMK
Yet, while the Centre seemed pushed to the defensive, there were also signs that the Opposition’s INDIA bloc continues to falter; barely strung together not due to shared ideological commitment, trust or respect but on account of individual political interests of its constituents still being aligned against the ruling BJP.
Belligerent MPs of the DMK may have forced Pradhan to withdraw his remark calling them “uncivilised” in the Lok Sabha but the lukewarm support they received from allies, including senior MPs from the Congress, in slamming the BJP’s ‘Hindi imposition’ was all too evident. Neither Rahul Gandhi, the Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition, nor any of his party MPs (barring those from Tamil Nadu) or those from other INDIA constituents joined ranks with the DMK in opposing the ‘three-language formula’, betraying the Opposition’s uneasiness over making the ‘language row’ the centrepiece of its anti-BJP tirade.
In contrast, Rahul leapt up from his seat in the Lok Sabha to back Trinamool Congress MP Saugata Roy’s allegations of voter list manipulation, even demanding a discussion in Parliament on the issue; a stand also taken in the Rajya Sabha earlier in the day by Congress president and Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge. That there is no love lost between the Congress and the Trinamool is widely known. The two parties, despite being constituents of the INDIA bloc, are seen sniping at each other more often than uniting for an anti-BJP blitzkrieg.
No more united Oppn
If the Congress deemed it necessary to somewhat echo the Trinamool’s stand on discrepancies in electoral rolls it was because the party is convinced that its “unexpected” poll losses in Maharashtra and Haryana last year were due to “fake” voter enrolments by the Election Commission and other electoral malpractices by the BJP. What could, however, not be ignored was how Rahul, in his fleeting intervention, alluded to voter list manipulation in Maharashtra while keeping silent on similar allegations being made by the TMC in Bengal or by Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP, which has been making the same noises since before it lost the Delhi Assembly polls last month.
Floor leaders of the INDIA parties have, since the start of the Budget Session on January 31, abandoned the practice of meeting in Kharge’s chambers in Parliament every morning to coordinate their strategy for cornering Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on the floor of either House. Sources cutting across INDIA parties conceded that the bloc is “no longer functioning as a united Opposition” but with a “to each his own” approach, simply hoping that “political issues prioritised by different parties will align in one way or another against the Centre”.
It is in this backdrop that the DMK’s strong stand against the backdoor “imposition of Hindi on Tamils” through the Modi government’s New Education Policy (NEP) or even its robust opposition to the impending exercise for delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies has put the INDIA bloc, and particularly the Congress party, in a spot of bother.
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Cong treads with caution
Sources close to the Congress top brass told The Federal that though Rahul is personally “in complete agreement with (MK) Stalin” on the ‘language row’, he has been advised by his party colleagues, especially those from Hindi-speaking states, where the Congress is currently at its weakest, “against wading into the issue”.
A senior party leader said the Congress’ Parliamentary Strategy Group, which includes Sonia Gandhi, Kharge, Rahul, Priyanka and other senior party MPs, is likely to “weigh in on different political, social and electoral dimensions of the language debate” when it meets on Monday evening.
“In principle, Rahul agrees with the Tamil Nadu CM’s views (against the three-language formula) but we can’t be seen backing a lot of what Stalin has said about Hindi… the BJP is waiting for us to make that mistake so that it can play that up as an insult to Hindi and Hindi speaking people in states like UP, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, etc. You can already see BJP leaders and spokespersons questioning the Congress and even the Samajwadi Party and the RJD on whether we all agree with Stalin’s ‘anti-Hindi’ views,” this leader said.
Congress sources say the party would prefer a “nuanced approach” on the language issue; allowing MPs from Tamil Nadu to publicly back Stalin while the central leadership simply harps about the Constitution granting parity to all official languages while respecting the right of individual citizens to speak any language they choose.
SP, RJD too steer clear
Leaders from the SP and the RJD, key constituents of the INDIA bloc from the so-called Hindi Heartland, too are unlikely to give an unqualified endorsement to the stand taken by Stalin. A senior Lok Sabha MP from the SP told The Federal that the “DMK’s position on Hindi is due to its own political compulsion and our stand of not commenting on it is due to our own political compulsion”.
Like the language row, the DMK’s anti-delimitation stance too has put the party’s allies in the wider INDIA bloc in a dilemma. Senior leaders from the Trinamool, the SP and the RJD that The Federal spoke to said taking a stand on the delimitation exercise right now would be “hasty” as the Centre has not spelled out how the delimitation would be carried out.
“The first step for delimitation is the completion of the Census and as of now even that hasn’t begun; let us wait for that and then for the Delimitation Commission to be set up so that we know what the terms of reference are and give an informed opinion,” SP’s Javed Ali Khan said. While senior RJD leader Manoj Jha has, in his capacity, opposed delimitation “purely on the basis of population”, another spokesperson of his party said, “the southern states are right in saying they should not be punished for effective population control but why should we speak on it right now and allow BJP to use it against us when Bihar goes for elections (later this year).”
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Focus on issues that unite
With no unanimity within the Opposition on the two issues – Hindi imposition and delimitation – that the DMK has single-handedly pivoted to the front and centre of the current political rhetoric against the BJP, others in the INDIA bloc believe the alliance must focus on building a narrative over “matters on which a broad consensus already exists” in the anti-BJP camp.
“Issues like the Waqf Bill, (US President Donald) Trump’s retaliatory tariffs and the deportation of Indians from America, the ongoing issues of farmer protests, unrest in Manipur and unemployment as well as the large-scale manipulation of voter lists across different states are all matters on which a broad consensus already exists among INDIA parties even if there are differences between some of them on other issues. The best way forward, at least during the Parliament session, is that we focus on issues on which we have a consensus rather than on issues which can create divisions or be exploited by the BJP,” said a Congress leader who is also part of the party’s Parliamentary Strategy Group.
There is, however, another pressing requirement that the INDIA partners need to fulfil before they can hope to launch a united assault against the Centre – that of uniting among themselves, signs of which are hardly visible at the moment.