Prime Minister Modi set the stage for the government’s offensive making a special mention of the “dark days of Emergency” in his speech ahead of the session. The Congress led the opposition ranks waving copies of the Constitution.
During his oath in the morning, PM Modi also reached out to the opposition and stressed on consensus as a need of the hour to run the country. “To run a government, we need a majority but to run a country we need consensus,” he said. Substance is important, not slogans , the PM added.
However, for a change, it is not expected to be one way firing.
Congress’s Rahul Gandhi, who held a copy of the Constitution when PM Modi took his oath, demanded that the government address ten fiascos in 15 days that have erupted since the Modi-led NDA government returned to power. The INDIA bloc members also held a march, holding copies of the Constitution and raising slogans such as “long live Constitution,” “we will save the Constitution,” and “save our democracy.”
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For the first time, PM Modi faces a vociferous opposition challenging him with sheer numbers in the House, contrary to his record of previously bulldozing the opposition by leading the BJP to victories with overwhelming numbers.
“PM Modi said he missed a good opposition. He should brace for one this term,” wrote Ram Madhav, a key RSS official and former BJP general secretary, in an opinion piece for the Indian Express.
Making the case that the Prime Minister can successfully pull off a coalition govt for a full term he wrote, “The challenge will not come from managing the coalition, but from an opposition coming to the house with the mindset that the BJP has no mandate to rule.”
To the BJP and Prime Minister’s disbelief, who in his last motion of thanks to the President before the elections claimed that the Congress would be “sitting in the gallery” for the 18th Lok Sabha, the grand old party has almost doubled its numbers and scored a century, given Priyanka Gandhi wins the bypolls in Wayanad. And for the first time in the Modi-led years, the Congress has earned the position of the leader of the opposition in the House.
While this does not detract from the BJP’s significant achievement of being the single largest party, returning to power for the third time and retaining nearly the same vote share, the striking fact remains that the opposition led by the Congress has consolidated its share to rise to 223 seats in the House, while the BJP’s numbers have dropped from 303 to 240.
This means the voice of the opposition will be much louder on critical bills, unlike previous terms where the ruling BJP could muzzle through bills due to their overwhelming numbers and, at times, without opposition members being present in the House to debate, analysts say.
Unwilling to concede anything without a fight
As the BJP pushes the message that it is business as usual by signaling continuity with the same cabinet, the resurgent Congress also has not shied away from sending counter-messages.
The first sign that it is not business as usual from the opposition came after the BJP appointed Bhartruhari Mahtab as the temporary pro-tem Speaker. The opposition contested Mahtab’s appointment, signaling its unwillingness to concede anything without a fight.
To checkmate the BJP led NDA govt from asserting early dominance, the opposition criticized the appointment of Mahtab, a seven-term member, as pro-tem Speaker over Kodikunnil Suresh, a Congress member with eight terms. The Congress-led opposition claimed that this decision breached the tradition that the senior-most MP should be chosen for the role. In protest, three INDIA bloc members on the assisting panel threatened to withdraw.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh accused the BJP of bias against Dalits, questioning why Karnataka MP Ramesh Chandappa Jigajinagi, also a seven-term parliamentarian, was overlooked for the pro-tem Speaker position.
The opposition, showing renewed vigor in their tone and tenor, plans to challenge the government on issues like the exam leaks row, railway safety lapses, demands for a joint parliamentary probe into alleged ‘stock market manipulations via fake exit polls’, the Agnipath military recruitment scheme, and the ongoing Manipur unrest.
The initial two days of the session are expected to be calm with newly elected MPs taking their oaths, but tension might rise during the Speaker’s election on Wednesday if the opposition fields its own candidate against an unacceptable government nominee.
In a rare gesture, BJP’s parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju recently reached out to Kharge at his residence for opposition consensus on the Speaker, who is more likely to be from the BJP.
The most evident tensions are anticipated during discussions on the motion of thanks to the President’s address, where the opposition aims to challenge the government.
