The Congress parliamentary managers heaved a sigh of relief on Wednesday, after the Opposition-sponsored adjournment motion was rejected in both Houses by the respective chairs. But the ruling party had taken no chances, with a whip issued to all MPs on Tuesday just in case the motion had been accepted, senior ministerial sources said.
The core of the argument put forward by the Congress — articulated by Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee — against an adjournment motion on the issue of a hike in fuel prices was that it would have been justified only if there had been a legal or constitutional failure on the part of the government, whereas in the current case, the party maintained, the government had taken a conscious decision to hike fuel prices.
Emotive issue
Senior Congress sources later said that though they could have mustered the numbers to defeat the motion, as they had done in the budget session when they had defeated the cut motions, it required the sort of effort that they felt was unproductive. These sources added that voting with the government on an emotive issue such as price rise would have also placed their UPA partners, the Trinamool Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (DMK), at a political disadvantage vis-à-vis their electoral opponents, the Left parties and the AIADMK, respectively, in their home States of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, where Assembly elections are due next year.
Indeed, Trinamool's Sudip Bandopadhyay, pressing for a discussion on the price rise issue, stressed that it should be under a non-voting provision, while the DMK's T.R. Baalu challenged the Opposition to bring a no-confidence motion, if it had the courage to do so.
Clearly, the Congress did not want a situation where any cracks may have shown up in the ruling coalition, or indeed among its wider group of supporters, particularly the Samajwadi Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Bahujan Samaj Party, especially as the BJP had been trying hard over the last few days to woo these parties.
On their part, these parties, too, did not want to be pushed into taking a stand on the issue of price rise, in case the discussion had entailed voting — this even though the SP and the BSP, too, had given notices for an adjournment motion. Senior Congress sources pointed out that these three parties had not as yet withdrawn their letters of support to the UPA which they had submitted to President Pratibha Patil.
So, on Wednesday, in a rebuff to the BJP, demonstrating how fragile the Opposition unity was, RJD chief Lalu Prasad took a swipe at BJP president Nitin Gadkari: “A leader of a political party holding the top post had made derogatory remarks against Mulayam Singh and me. He, however, apologised later,” he said, referring to a public rally in Chandigarh, where Mr. Gadkari had accused the two men of betraying the Opposition on the cut motions on the budget in the last session of Parliament as they had CBI cases against them. “How can we be afraid of the CBI? We know how to deal with such behaviour. We take decisions on our own and do not depend on anyone else,” Mr. Prasad said.
He also said, jocularly, that he had “forgotten” to give notice for an adjournment motion.
Interestingly, senior Congress sources added that the issue of ‘politicisation of the CBI,” a subject that has been exercising the BJP ever since the Sohrabuddin case has gained momentum, is very low down on the BJP's list of issues it wishes to discuss in Parliament, as any discussion that entails the role of former Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah will not receive the sort of support from other Opposition parties as the price rise issue. Clearly, that is the way the Congress would like discussions in the House to head.
