MP suspensions, voice vote for debate-free Parliament?

Last Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had kept away from the customary all-party meeting before a session of Parliament, which is held to discuss fruitful ways to conduct legislative business and allowing enough time for the discussion on important non-legislative matters. This has turned out to be portentous. The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha began on a note of turmoil on Monday, the opening day of the Winter Session, caused by the government passing the Bill to repeal the three contentious farm law in four minutes flat through a voice vote in the Lok Sabha. The steam-rolling majority was used as a handy tool to negate discussion, no matter how repugnant the idea is to the spirit of democratic debate.

A brief and perfunctory discussion was held by the government in the Rajya Sabha. But the government then passed a motion to suspend 12 Opposition members for a presumed transgression from the last day of the previous session, by any accounts an extraordinary and repressive move. The rule is clear. For creating a ruckus and not letting the House function, the Chairman has the latitude to suspend members for the “remainder of the session”. Since the proceedings that were not to the liking of the chair — vice-president M. Venkaiah Naidu — belonged to the last day of the Monsoon Session, the presiding officer chose to extracting deference to the next session. This is new to the annals of India’s parliamentary life.

The attempt by Opposition parties on Tuesday to reason with the chair was no use. He wanted them to come to him in sackcloth and ashes, and show remorse. It is debatable whether this was the only way to go in the absence of an objective assessment of the circumstances of the day in question.

On Tuesday, the key Opposition parties confined themselves to staging a walkout for the day, shying away from the heavier step of boycotting the entire Winter Session, which some suggested. But no matter what, the suspension of 12 members would hand the government a clear majority in the Rajya Sabha without ifs and buts. Any measure can be passed without discussion — as if an Opposition did not exist.

The suspension of MPs appears to be the second prong of a two-pronged government strategy, the first being the passing of the repeal Bill of the three controversial agriculture laws without discussion. The voice vote is evidently the weapon of choice since the BJP-led NDA commands a brute Lok Sabha majority. In the event, the question is likely to arise: Did the PM stay away from the all-party meeting knowing what the planned shape of things to come was to be — no discussion on key Bills, and penalising the Opposition? Is the objective to have a discussion-free Parliament?

The story of the now repealed three agriculture laws is amazing. These were enacted in September 2020 without discussion in Parliament. Now their repeal has come without discussion. It doesn’t seem to matter that most of our MPs are from the rural areas. Since the farmers — the real stake-holders — had not been consulted, they went on a 15-month protest. Some 700 of them died in the process. The three laws, which in a fundamental way were about turning Indian agriculture into an arena of contract farming, were rolled back by government out of fear of electoral consequences. But in the Lok Sabha agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar performed a sorcerer’s act. He claimed that the repeal arose from “consensus” when it was really rooted in fierce struggle. This is why the government wanted no discussion on the laws being repealed, or the demand for legislation on MSP — as farmers desire.

The suspension of 12 members would hand the government a clear majority in the Rajya Sabha without ifs and buts. Any measure can be passed without discussion — as if an Opposition did not exist.