Assembly Review -- Confident Govt, jittery Oppn

 

By Kartik Lokhande

The first week of the winter session of State Legislature was marked by the usual drill of the Opposition parties raising the issue of farmers’ suicides, drought, compensation and the Government appealing to them to debate on the floor of the House. The only difference this time, however, was that the Government appeared to be more confident and hence more aggressive; while the Opposition was jittery.

Every year, the entire State Legislature comprising the Government as well as the Opposition comes to Nagpur, the Second Capital of the State. Sadly, every year, the issue of either drought and farmers’ suicides or demand for statehood to Vidarbha dominates the Opposition charge. As a result, over the years, both these issues are getting diluted in public debate. This year, too, the Opposition parties – Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) – raised the issue of drought and forced adjournments demanding loan waiver and relief package to farmers, but without discussion on the floor of the House.

Of course, this provided the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Shiv Sena alliance Government an opportunity to press for discussion on the serious issue. And, the Government used this opportunity quite well, expressing not only willingness for debate on drought but also initiating it from the ruling side. When it came to facing the Opposition on the floor of the House, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis himself launched a frontal attack on the Opposition and condemned its stand of disrupting the House proceedings instead of raising the issues through legislative debate. And, the Opposition had no answer as to why was it not interested in discussing as serious an issue as drought. Besides, the dilution of forces of the Opposition was quite visible as NCP often did not join Congress, for whatever reasons. Moreover, when asked what were they doing to provide relief to drought-affected farmers if the Government was allegedly not doing anything, Congress leaders replied shakily, “What can we do? It is the responsibility of the Government.” This indicates lack of assertive and affirmative action on part of the Opposition that remained in sloganeering mode only.

The confidence of the Government was quite visible in another instance also. At the start of the week, Congress and NCP raised strong objections to the remarks of Adv Shreehari Aney, Advocate General of Maharashtra, who allegedly said that martyrdom of 105 persons during Sanyukta Maharashtra movement had no connection with inclusion of Vidarbha into Maharashtra. Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Congress leader and the Leader of Opposition in Assembly; Dhananjay Munde, NCP leader and Leader of Opposition in Council; as well as other senior leaders including Ajit Pawar, NCP stalwart, all condemned the remarks and sought removal of Adv Aney from the post of Advocate General. However, when the reporters asked these leaders, they said that they had not heard for themselves the remarks made by Adv Aney but had relied on headlines in a section of media.

Interestingly, many within Congress and NCP did not seem to be much interested in this non-issue. Surprisingly, the MLAs from Vidarbha who belonged to Congress party, did not speak a word in this whole episode. And, when the reporters asked the Congress and NCP leaders about their stand on the issue of Vidarbha statehood, both shied away from making it clear. Instead, they gave vague reply, “We will make our stand clear on the floor of the House when the matter comes up.” As against this, Adv Aney stood by his remarks and reiterated, “During Sanyukta Maharashtra movement, the 105 persons laid their lives to press for inclusion of Mumbai in Maharashtra instead of Gujarat, and not for inclusion of Vidarbha in Maharashtra.” The Government also remained firm and did not yield to sloganeering outside the House.

This particular episode also exposed how Shiv Sena heeded more to the Opposition parties than the ruling alliance partner. For, soon after Congress and NCP made an appeal to Shiv Sena to take up the issue of Adv Aney’s remarks, it swung into action condemning the Advocate General’s remarks outside the House.

Of course, outside the House, the Congress party scored well in its morcha. Still, the week exposed once again that it lacks a dynamic leadership that would counter the ruling side effectively in the House. And, many Congress MLAs themselves express this in confidence. That the Opposition is jittery and unfocussed could be gauged from the statement of Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil at the end of the first week, when he said, “We are yet to decide strategy for the second week.”

As the proceedings of the second week of winter session start today, it will be interesting to watch if the first week’s sense continues to prevail. 

(13-12-15)