New Delhi: Launching a scathing attack on the Modi government ahead of the winter session of Parliament, Rajya Sabha MP Prof Manoj Jha (RJD) and Jawhar Sircar (TMC) speaking at a conference in New Delhi on 'Discussion on State of Parliamentary Democracy in India', blamed the BJP for lowering down the state of parliamentary democracy in the country under the guise of electoral arithmetic and brute majoritarianism.
Expressing their discomfort over the Parliamentary debates and its working bodies, ex-IAS and now TMC MP Jawhar Sircar noted that "India is going through a tough phase. They (BJP) don't want us to raise a question in Parliament. Therefore, we witnessed extreme turbulences when a lot of our Parliamentarians were expelled (during the last session)."
"Either you are being expelled or you are being forced to sit down. When then this happens, the Parliamentarian is forced to walk out of the House and that is what the ruling government wishes. That is their strategy" adds Sircar. Notably, during the last Parliament session in July, nearly two dozen Parliamentarians were expelled for their alleged unruly behaviour, which was criticised by the Opposition parties.
Sircar added that "It is painful to witness the deterioration in the functioning of the Parliamentary system and its Standing Committees. Now, the number of working days has been getting reduced, camera's movement is being controlled by the ruling dispensation. In the past few sessions, around 50 bills have been passed with an average discussion on those with just two to three minutes."
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Similarly, Prof Jha, who is known for his well-researched speeches in Parliament, agreed with Sircar's views and added that "We are not just divided in the Parliament, but on the streets as well." This is an area of extreme polarisation and brute majoritarianism. One might win elections on the count of electoral arithmetic, but that does not mean that your stand above others, said Jha.
Sharing his views on the outcomes of the last two Lok Sabha elections, Jha adds that "fear and anger have shaped the outcomes of the elections. Nowadays, our houses and villages appear divided, which is not just an attack on the federal structure, but rather is an extremely worrying trend. Lauding the Congress party, Jha said that "Congress while ruling the country for decades could've also supported the one-party trend, but they did not. But what BJP is doing is yet again pushing us to an alarming situation." Both the Parliamentarians in their speeches noted that the BJP has the sole aim to crush and demonise the opposition and their way of running Parliament is a trend, which has caused a great loss to the history of our Parliamentary democracy.
