Desecration of the temple of democracy

This is how public money is drained.

It was the penultimate day of the winter session of Parliament. The entire session failed to discuss even one issue pertaining to the common man. Not a single MP raised any issue regarding his constituency. Entire time was killed in ruckus and protests alleg-ing link between Adani, who according to Rahul, was looting the country under Modi’s protection. BJP levelled a counter-attack, alleging Sonia Gandhi’s links with George Soros.

As the session was coming to a close, Thursday saw unprece-dented and most unfortunate incidents which I would call as a black day in the history of Parliament. Protest, counterprotests and brawls were witnessed on the penultimate day of the Winter Session during an unprecedented scuffle between the members of NDA and INDIA bloc MPs over insult to the legacy of the coun-try’s greatest Dalit icon, Dr Ambedkar.

The MPs jostled with one another, which resulted in one suffering bleeding injuries and the other having to undergo an MRI. It was a shameful incident because the Leader of Opposition (LoP), Rahul Gandhi, did not even show the courtesy of extending sym-pathy towards the injured fellow MPs, but displayed a body lan-guage which was unbecoming of an LoP. “Kya hua,” he asked walking aggressively towards the injured BJP MP. When one of them asked, “why did you shove him?” his one liner was, “No, I did not push him, he pushed me” and walked away.

It is something unimaginable that the leader of India’s opposition treated the place as a battle ground and fellow MPs as enemies across the border. He should have at least had the courtesy to say it was an unfortunate incident and should not have hap-pened. Later in the evening, Congress and Rahul again dis-played their obsession of ‘Adani’ and ‘attack on Constitution’, and threatened to take up a country-wide agitation. I had covered Parliament for over a decade and half and over three decades of state legislature proceedings, but never did I see so much arro-gance being displayed by any member after any unfortunate in-cident took place. Who is right, and who is wrong would be known after a probe but it is expected that some kind of sympa-thy was shown towards the injured.

Since the issue has taken a very serious turn, the Lok Sabha secretariat should release the CCTV footage so that the country can know what exactly happened. The opposition had no heart to say that it was an unfortunate incident. This does not behoove a party which claims to be the followers of principles of Mahatma Gandhi, if they really do so.

While Rahul said he was pushed by the 60-year-old man, Pri-yanka Vadra talks of attempts to remove Amit Shahs Rajya Sa-bha video on Ambedkar form ‘X ‘handle and questions why BJP MPs were allowed to protest at the gate. But there was no word of sympathy towards the injured. Is this the example of Congress party’s ‘Mohabbat ki Dukan’?

Well, dissent and protests are Constitutional rights. The Con-gress has been doing it since day one of the winter session. He as the LoP should have raised the issue in Lok Sabha and should have said that one wishes such an unfortunate incident did not happen, and wished speedy recovery of the injured MPs. Thereafter, he could have blamed the BJP for the incident. This certainly amounts to the desecration of the temple of democracy. This is not expected from the lawmakers. Parliament is not Akha-da!