Congress rediscovers itself

By Javed M. Ansari

NEW DELHI, NOV. 25. In the din and fury that has come to mark parliamentary discourse these days, the message often gets sidelined. Last week's adjournment motion in the Lok Sabha on the plight of farmers may have failed to pass the muster but it served to underline the seriousness of the situation that affects nearly 70 per cent of the people.

The motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition, her first in that capacity, predictably failed to get the nod of the majority of the members, dictated as the members were by their party affiliations.

However, it did serve as a pointer to the gravity of the issue and the recognition of the fact by the major parties. The Congress which actually signed the WTO as well as votaries of liberalistion like the TDP, appeared to be waking up to the pitfalls of blindly following the path of liberalistion.

The Congress' decision to move the adjournment motion on the issue also marks a realisation on its part that it needs to assert itself on behalf of popular opinion, if it is to prevent other political parties and outfits like the RSS from occupying the ``opposition space.''

That the Congress was willing to square up to the SP and press ahead with its right to move the motion on the plight of farmers shows that the party has at last woken up to the need to position itself as a protector of the affected by the process.

Last week development clearly shows that though the party may not be about to jettison the liberalisation process it clearly feels the need to draw a distinction between the process that it initiated and the manner in which it is being implemented by the BJP. ``There is little in common between the reckless abandon that marks the BJP's approach and ours,'' says Mr. Prithviraj Chauhan, a former MP and member of the party's economic cell.

The Congress may have ended up on the losing side, but it did succeed in cornering the Government and exposing the differences in the NDA, between the allies and the Government. During the course of the debate the TDP, BJP and the Shiv Sena spoke almost the same language that the Opposition parties did.

In fact the BJD member, Mr. Pradhan, went out of his way to make his party's position abundantly clear. `` We are unfortunately a part of the NDA or else we would have voted against the Government's policies.

The Congress' position was eloquently outlined by its deputy leader in the House, Mr. Madhavrao Scindia. He pointed out that the Government's attempts to put the onus of the problem on the Congress, saying that it had negotiated the WTO and the present Government was only fulfilling that commitment, was without basis. He pointed out that the WTO was an umbrella agreement in which countries were free to negotiate bilaterally. ``The Government has not only failed in negotiating to protect the country's interest, its weak-kneed attitude is enslaving the country once again.'' The Congress appeared to have done its homework and Mr. Scindia provided detailed figures to put things in perspective. He pointed out that while the U.S. and the European Union had imposed heavy import duties and invested billions of dollars, the BJP-led Government was doing exactly the opposite , cutting subsidy on agricultural inputs and allowing duty free import of agricultural products into the country.

The debate in the end, turned out exactly the opposite to the way it should have been. It was more about positioning and scoring brownie points than about actually doing something to correct the situation of farmers.

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Section  : Opinion
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