NEW DELHI: As many as 19 Opposition parties including the Congress declared their intention to boycott the inauguration of the new Parliament building on May 28. In a statement, they said there was no value in a new building when ‘the soul of democracy has been sucked out of the Parliament.’
A bone of contention is Prime Minister Modi’s decision to inaugurate the building himself while sidelining President Droupadi Murmu, which as per the Opposition was a grave insult, and an assault on our democracy.
The signatories to the statement include parties like the DMK, AAP, Trinamool Congress, Janata Dal (U), CPI (M), among others. The statement refers to Article 79 of the Constitution which states, “There shall be a Parliament for the Union which shall consist of the President and two Houses, to be known respectively as the Council of States and the House of the People. The Opposition highlighted that it is the President who summons, prorogues and addresses the Parliament. The Opposition also shed light on the PM’s ‘undemocratic’ acts of disqualifying non-BJP MPs, and the passage of bills without any debates.
The BJP has countered the boycott with Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswas Sarma reminding everyone that no non-BJP government has permitted a governor to inaugurate a legislative assembly building or lay the foundation stone of one. He recalled the foundation stone laying of assembly buildings in Jharkhand and Assam in 2014, in Andhra Pradesh in 2018, in Chhattisgarh in 2020, and in Telangana in 2023.
It was actually during the pandemic when the conversations regarding India’s need for a new Parliament building began gathering steam. It was argued that the old building, despite its historical links, was inadequate to accommodate more parliamentarians in the event of the next delimitation exercise. The PM had taken it upon himself to spearhead its construction during his regime. But he was pilloried for seeking political brownie points for this.
Political observers had also remarked that the new building was being constructed at a great expense and that too, right in the midst of a ‘once in a century health crisis’ such as the pandemic when there was a need for provisioning of relief materiel and financial disbursements to those who had been hit the hardest. The inauguration date has also drawn flak from members of the polity, as May 28 coincides with the birth anniversary of VD Savarkar, a leading figure in the Hindu Mahasabha, who also inspired the RSS.
It might be argued that every political party has the liberty to choose whom it owes its allegiance and value system to, but the timing of the unveiling of the new Parliament is telling, in more ways than one. What we have also seen for close to a decade now is how the ruling party at the Centre has hogged the political landscape and mindshare across regions. It’s also why Opposition parties and the BJP rarely see eye to eye on any issue of national importance. Every move is considered by the other as an opportunity to capitalise on the political mileage afforded by the episode, as opposed to arriving at an informed consensus.
The absence of a common talking point, or a middle-ground, so to speak, has detrimental effects on the health of a democracy. It makes a mountain of a molehill and turns non-issues into conversation breakers and cannon fodder for primetime TV.
