THE walk-out of the Opposition Members of Lok Sabha during the speech of Home Minister Mr. Amit Shah once again points to the fact that the Opposition is a timid grouping with no courage to face facts on any matter. This habit of the Opposition came to the fore once again -- demonstrating clearly that its main interest is only to disturb the House rather than seek correct answers. Even as Mr. Shah assured the House that he would respond to each of the 3-4 issues raised by Leader of Opposition Mr. Rahul Gandhi, the Opposition chose to stage a walkout right when the Home Minister’s presentation reached a crucial stage.

 

When Mr. Amit Shah was in full flow of his oratorical excellence, the Opposition started raising objections and Mr. Shah was all geared up to answer each of those. Yet, after a few chaotic moments, the Opposition staged a walk out from the House. This has happened on several occasions in the past. When Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi stood up to respond to the debate on Manipur situation, the Opposition staged a walk out after a few minutes of slogan-shouting. On a few occasions, they did not want to allow the Prime Minister to complete his speech on crucial national issues. For over one hour of the Prime Minister’s speech, the Opposition did not stop its slogan-shouting and ungainly remarks for even half a minute when the Prime Minister was speaking. In his response to the debate on electoral reforms, Mr. Amit Shah was masterly in detail and interpretation as well as nuances of history. The Opposition was apparently clueless how to counter the Home Minister. That was probably why it chose to stage a walk-out -- meaning that it did not want to listen to the official position and also not want to participate in the parliamentary functions.

 

The experience of the past 10-plus years is that the Opposition has no interest whatsoever in the functioning of the Parliament and is interested only in disrupting the proceedings in whatever manner. Even though the Government agrees for debate on any issue, the Opposition keeps making attempts to portray the Government as unwilling to have debate on the floor of the Parliament. On occasions when the Opposition gets trapped in debates, its members do everything possible to disrupt the proceedings -- like they did during Mr. Amit Shah’s speech on electoral reforms. The worst part of the Opposition’s conduct is that it goes full distance to show disrespect to the parliamentary norms and principles of parliamentary democracy. No matter how logically correctly does the Government present a point of view, the Opposition just refuses to listen to logic and good sense.

 

The issue of so-called ‘vote- chori’, too, has been answered fully and logically and legally by the Government on countless occasions. Yet, the Opposition refuses to see sense in sensible talk and chooses to oppose the Government obstinately. On every issue it raised in the past 10-11 years, the Opposition has proved that it has no point to make except disrupting the systems. Hence its clear demonstration of disrespect to the Government, to the Prime Minister, to the Parliament, to the Armed Forces, to the judiciary. For any sane person, such a behaviour is beyond any logic and beyond any explanation. Yet, the Opposition is unwilling to mend its ways and start taking part in the democratic process in a sane and logical manner. Its participation in the democratic process is restricted only to taking part in elections -- where, too, it is losing its ground rapidly. It is obvious that the Opposition is a timid and thoughtless grouping that has no pre-meditated destination to reach in politics and national affairs. True, it gets a lot of media attention -- with which is appears to be happy. Winning elections does not appear to be its goal. For, if it were, the grouping would have behaved differently and sanely.