LOK Sabha Leader of Opposition Mr. Rahul Gandhi does not appear willing to give his bad habit of levelling false charges against Speaker Mr. Om Birla. Mr. Gandhi has once again accused Mr. Birla of running the Lok Sabha proceedings in “non-democratic” style. That was so because Mr. Om Birla had cautioned him against violation of norms and regulations of the House. In response, Mr. Gandhi accused the Speaker of not allowing him to speak -- a charge he has made on numerous occasions in the past as well. Of course, Mr. Om Birla has a clear conscience on this issue and will not budge no matter the baseless allegations by anybody, let alone Mr. Rahul Gandhi. The trouble, however, is that Mr. Rahul Gandhi is refusing to learn from earlier experience that baseless allegations would not take him any distance in politics.

 

No matter how many times he has been rebuffed on the issue, Mr. Rahul Gandhi does not appear willing to mend his ways. In other words, Mr. Rahul Gandhi -- as well as other parties in the Opposition -- does not know how to mount an opposition to whatever Prime Minister Mr. Modi does. Obviously, all of them have run out of creative ideas to thwart the progress of the Modi juggernaut. So, mindlessly, they keep making the same allegation over and over again -- democracy in peril, the Constitution in danger of being thoughtlessly altered, the Prime Minister is a non-performer, the Government has posted massive failure on every front ...! What is surprising is that Mr. Rahul Gandhi or most other Opposition leaders do not seem to have a team of advisors to counsel them on how to conduct themselves and how and what points to be raised to corner Mr. Narendra Modi and his Government and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). That is, no doubt, a very sad state of affairs. For, when the Opposition runs out of creative ideas to counter the Government or the ruling party, then it does not hurt its own interests but also hurts the larger national interest. For, in any democracy, to have a strong and sensible Opposition is a core need. Unfortunately, that need is not being fulfilled by the current Opposition in India.

 

What the country witnesses by way of the Opposition moves should be an anathema to democracy (in which strong Opposition acts as a check-and-balance system on the Government). Thanks to its mindlessness, the Opposition in India has converted itself into a rudderless group incapable of putting up a staunch resistance to the Government even on critical issues. Many observers, however, think that Mr. Rahul Gandhi is doing things as per a well-drawn plan whose main goal is only to create disruption in the country. Statedly, the main aim of the Opposition is to dislodge the Government and take over power. But considering how the Opposition in India is conducting itself, there are grounds to suspect whether it has some other sly angle -- only to create disturbances in the country on every possible count. It does not seem to have a clear road-map to dare the Government systematically and make it difficult for the party in power to garner votes at the hustings.

 

For, the outcome of most elections is contrary to any such expectation. The Opposition has been on a losing spree while the ruling BJP is on an eternal upward trend. The Opposition does not see this reality -- which is why it does not want to alter its mindless ways. True, it is pursuing the policy of minority appeasement, all right. However, given the cumulative negative effect of its moves on the electoral outcome, it must be stated that the Opposition is proving to be a massive failure -- which gets proved once again by the baseless and thoughtless allegations made by Mr. Rahul Gandhi.