Welcome to The Political Fix by Rohan Venkataramakrishnan, a newsletter on Indian politics and policy. To get it in your inbox every week,...
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The Big Story: The (House) Floor is lava
With its brute majority in the Lok Sabha, India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has rarely accorded Parliament much importance, seeing it more as a rubber stamp than a consultative space, as we discussed last year. The sordid manner in which the controversial agricultural bills were passed in September 2020 offered a prime example of this: the laws were approved in the Rajya Sabha without waiting to see if the majority of the members of Parliament was actually voting for them.
Over the last two weeks, the Opposition has sought to use the BJP’s own tactic against it.
Back in 2010, as news emerged of alleged corruption in the allocation of 2G telecom licences, the BJP along with others in the Opposition at the time decided to keep up a constant protest and prevent Parliament from functioning.
BJP leader Arun Jaitley, who has since died, defended this strategt at the time. “Parliament’s job is to conduct discussions,”...
