Targeting the RS chairperson

The unprecedented move by the INDIA bloc to oust the vice president (VP) and Rajya Sabha chairman, Jagdeep Dhankhar, on charges of being partisan, will likely fail because its motion will fall well short of the required 50% (116 votes) to do so (it has only 86), but the real story is not the numbers but the message in the move. And this is a message of distrust between the treasury and Opposition benches (across Parliament and not just the upper House), and the increased scrutiny and criticism constitutional posts (including the governors of states) have come under in an environment characterised by extreme polarisation.

The Opposition has been threatening this for a few sessions but held its hand. Now that it has chosen to act, Mr. Dhankhar becomes the first VP to face an ouster attempt, and the effects of this notice — sure to be defeated if put to vote — will be far-reaching and long-lasting. For starters, it will further damage the relations between the Chair and the Opposition. The target of a no-confidence motion will have to be a saint to forget the ignominy of facing one, and saints are in short supply these days. Second, the move threatens to diminish and question the authority of the Rajya Sabha Chair, an independent institution.

Running the Rajya Sabha has never been an easy task, and the polarised state of politics inside and outside Parliament has not made Dhankhar’s job any easier. If the ruling alliance believes that its majority allows it the privilege to dominate Parliament, the Opposition, buoyed by better-than-before numbers in this Lok Sabha (and healthy numbers in the upper house), has been equally aggressive in confronting the treasury benches. Both sides have carried the viciousness of poll campaigns into the House. Both have responsibilities to Parliament that they have ignored: The government must convince the Opposition of adequate opportunities for debate and dialogue; and the Opposition must focus on constructive criticism, aimed at bettering the lot of Indians. Floor managers across parties have failed to persuade leaders across the aisle to sit together and build a climate of trust to enable debate on sensitive subjects. And if the government has used the strength of numbers to suppress the Opposition’s voice, then the latter has made Parliament a show-and-tell session, replete with T-shirts and masks, lowering the seriousness of the very issues it wants to flag before the nation. It would take superhuman skills to chair a House marked by these, and those, again, are in short supply these days. Unless the government and the Opposition can figure out a way to break the jam — the coming discussion on the Constitution may be an opportunity for that, and there appears to have been a mini-breakthrough at least in the lower house — expect more bad blood in the Rajya Sabha, even after the storm over the Opposition’s notice for the motion has passed.

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