A wild and miscalculated fury

The BJP had totally misjudged its attack on Sonia Gandhi for holding an office of profit

Vijay Sanghvi

Vengeance seems to be the motivating force in the Indian politics since the May 2004 elections to the Lok Sabha. It does not allow a smooth and undisturbed functioning of Parliament. No session of the 14th Lok Sabha has been without disturbances, interruptions and forced adjournments. Boycott of proceedings for days even on the slightest provocation was the most preferred path for the Opposition during the seven sessions since May 2004. Even dissecting the budget proposals through fuller and detailed debates in the Houses and in the Standing Committees, which Parliament is expected to carry out with exacting diligence, has not been performed by members. For Chidambaram’s first two budgets, the National Democratic Alliance had boycotted even the Standing Committees and for the third, the government sought an half way end to the budget session leaving no scope for a debate on budget proposals.

It is apparent that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has not come to terms with the reality of its defeat in the Lok Sabha election and ascendancy of the Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Though the BJP does not allow any opportunity to pass by to rub it in that she was an extra-constitutional authority, it has not been able to understand the phenomenon that Sonia Gandhi has become. Hence she has become a permanent target of attack for the BJP and its allies. Be it the Volcker report or release of funds in Quattrochi’s account or on the issue of offices of profit.

In their hatred for Sonia Gandhi, they have become so blind that they could not even throw their dices properly to win the political game they initiated since the Election Commission advised President APJ Abdul Kalam to disqualify Samajwadi Party member Jaya Bachchan from Rajya Sabha because she held an office of profit. BJP leaders went for Sonia Gandhi with a claim that her chairpersonship of the National Advisory Council (NAC) was an office of profit instead of seeking a clarification whether or not NAC came under the purview of the Article 102(1) of the Constitution.

The leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Lal Krishna Advani demanded Sonia’s resignation on moral grounds, but without seeking the resignation of his own party men who had also committed the same sin. The BJP leaders were confident that Sonia Gandhi would stick around and the Congress party managers would go to any length to save her membership in the Lok Sabha.

But Sonia Gandhi had other plans, leaving everyone dumbfounded by stepping down from both the Lok Sabha and as chair person of NAC. There was no risk involved for her in this move. All that was involved was expenditure of few crore in the bye-election that would follow to fill the seat of Rae Bareli that she vacated so dramatically. On the contrary what she gained could not have come even by spending a billion rupees. She had merely refurbished her image as a person who has come to politics not to gain office but to serve certain values and causes.

Had Advani first asked his partymen who were holding offices of profit to resign, he would have stood on a higher platform and forced Sonia Gandhi merely to accept the harsh reality of blunders by her party managers who had not ensured before hand to get exemption for the office she was given from disqualification. But she had cleverly seized the opportunity offered by the BJP and built up her image to a scale that would make it unassailable for anyone.

Will this restore the normalcy in functioning of Parliament is a question for which the answer is not readily available as the Opposition shows no sign of cooperation with the ruling alliance even though the government opened the avenue for negotiation by sending the parliamentary affairs minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi to seek a consensus for a new law that would provide protection to every one holding office of profit. Both the rightists and the leftists were as eager as the ruling alliance to have such a protection and immunity that they surrendered to the suggestions that came from the parliamentary affairs minister. But the cooperation would remain confined to merely adopting the law for which consensus has emerged. Things would be back to what they were earlier in this Lok Sabha because the Sonia Gandhi phenomenon has now become even more hurting thorn in the neck of the BJP leaders.