Modi's inability to make peace with a renewed Opposition will only embolden his coalition partners and it is just a matter of time before they begin asking probing questions besides politely disagreeing with his tactics, predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The Budget Session of Parliament is scheduled to begin in less than a fortnight.
If the tone and tenor of the two sides, the Treasury Benches and the Opposition, during Parliament's inaugural Session after completion of the elections for the 18th Lok Sabha is anything to go by, the forthcoming session is poised to be equally, if not more, confrontational, chiefly because the government is yet to make decisive gestures to make parliamentary functioning harmonious and consensual.
Fears of the raucous character of the inaugural session being repeated are accentuated by its short duration (scheduled sittings for just 16 days).
The ephemeral character of the Budget Session will be at odds with the government's declared intention, stated by President Droupadi Murmu in her address to the two Houses on June 27.
Through her speech, the government announced that the Budget will be 'an effective document of the government's far-reaching policies and futuristic vision' and that alongside 'major economic and social decisions, many historic steps will also be seen in this Budget'.
Logically, if the Budget will indeed announce extensive policy proposals, the government, which has fewer numbers on its side when compared to the 17th Lok Sabha, should have summoned the Budget session for a longer duration and not for such a short period to enable in-depth discussion on the proposals.
This indicates that there has been no significant revision, for the better, in the attitude of the principal coalition party of the National Democratic Alliance, the Bharatiya Janata Party, towards Parliament and its proceedings despite the loss of 63 seats in its Lok Sabha tally.
Paradoxically, in 2019 as well as in 2014, when the BJP won more seats, the Budget sessions were for longer durations.
The first Budget session during the tenure of the 17th Lok Sabha was convened for 37 days while the Rajya Sabha sat for 35 days.
Likewise, during the Budget session in 2014, the Lok Sabha ran for 167 hours, while the Upper House worked for 142 hours spread over 27 days.
Over decades in the Lok Sabha, which has the powers to sanction expenditure proposals of the ministries, the time spent on discussing these has declined.
Consequently, Demands for Grants that were not discussed, usually for the majority of ministries, were clubbed together and voted usually by voice-vote, with the exercise called 'guillotine'.
The BJP disparages the Congress for being insincere to parliamentary functioning. Yet, it was the Rajiv Gandhi government in August 1989 which launched the 'committee system' by establishing Standing Committees for Agriculture, Science and Technology and Environment and Forests to scrutinise the Demands for these ministries.
When the system proved successful, in April 1993, again under a Congress PM at the helm, 17th Departmentally Related Standing Committees (DRSCs) were established.
Conventionally thereafter, the Budget session was held in two phases -- after the Budget presentation and other legislative business, the two Houses would go into recess and during this period, the DRSCs comprising members of both Houses examined the Demands pertaining to the respective ministries.
These committees submitted reports and the ministries had the option to incorporate suggestions into the final Budget and brought it for passage in the second phase of the Budget session.
Problems arose when elections were held just after the scheduled Budget presentation, as in 2004 when the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government advanced the polls.
In those years, as in 2024 too, instead of the regular Budget, an interim Budget was passed. This was the case in 2014 and 2019 too, and the full Budget when presented post-polls was not discussed in detail for paucity of time -- in 2014, 94% of the Demands were passed without discussion and in 2019, only 20% of the demand for grants were discussed in the Lok Sabha.
Although the present government is thinner on its majority, the duration of the Budget session has unfortunately been further reduced.
The government has neither allowed time for the separate Demands to be taken by the DRSCs, nor does the House for a sufficient number of days.
This sets up the forthcoming session to be as antagonistic as the concluded one.
The government, however, can still minimise this possibility by showing greater accommodation towards the enhanced Opposition benches.
To begin with, this regime, especially the BJP, should show greater accommodation. A beginning can be made by offering the Deputy Speaker's position to the other side.
The BJP should not repeat the brazenness of 2019-2024 when for the first time in parliamentary history the 17th Lok Sabha did not have a Deputy Speaker.
Deputy Speakers in the past were often from the opposition parties -- for instance, the Akali Dal's Charanjit Singh Atwal held the position during 2004 and 2009 and the BJP's Kariya Munda was in the office between 2009 and 2014.
Prime Minister Modi needs not repeat his political small-mindedness of 2014-2019 when the position was held by the BJP ally, the AIADMK's M Thambidurai.
Political pragmatism warrants that Modi makes this gesture prior to the Budget session and pledge that the Deputy Speaker's matter shall be taken up immediately after the Budget is presented and any other pressing matter is completed.
Yet, doubts arise over adoption of such a strategy because the prime minister, it appears continues to remain in denial in regard to this year's electoral verdict.
At times it appears that for Modi, June 4 remains a missing date from his calendar and he still presumes that his government has a majority comparable to the previous House.
Till the absolute end of the campaign, he was convinced that the BJP was returning to office with a majority significantly greater than in the House dissolved.
He also believed that along with BJP allies, the tally would be even more, if not 400+ exactly but somewhere in that range.
However, Modi is saddled with an unprecedented situation. In almost 23 years since October 2001 when he became Gujarat chief minister, Modi always commanded a comfortable majority in either the Vidhan Sabha or Lok Sabha.
This enabled him to create a system that provided untrammelled power. This structure silently backed the politics of communal polarisation, promoted steadily even after the 2002 riots.
The cornerstones of Modi's 13 year reign in Gandhinagar, besides the politics of ceaseless polarisation on basis of religious identity, were the following: A highly centralised, even saffronised, bureaucracy, backed by the police and run by a band of closely knit loyalists and assembled under the nomenclature of the chief minister's office; the so-called single-window clearance which provided him power to give an official nod to all business proposals (alongside benefits that come with such authority); and the ubiquitously mentioned Gujarat-model that did little but open up space for the private sector while curbing traditional entrepreneurship in the state.
This apparatus was partly transplanted and partially replicated, besides being expanded in New Delhi on a national level. This model of governance worked when Modi had absolute parliamentary majority.
But with it missing, the prime minister will have to turn consensual. He cannot anymore be the domineering self that he has been so far.
Such a working style and creating an all-embracing persona is not instinctive to Modi. As a result, despite knowing what will work, he has so far only gone half-way up the tree.
In the inaugural sessions of Parliament, the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President got underway only after back channel talks with the Opposition.
Yet, for reasons unknown, the understanding collapsed -- possibly with his failure to set the ball rolling on the Deputy Speaker's election.
The Opposition has demonstrated that its numbers cannot be taken lightly by Modi this time.
Time will begin running out for the government very soon. His inability to make peace with a renewed Opposition will only embolden his coalition partners and it is just a matter of time before they begin asking probing questions besides politely disagreeing with his tactics.
Buoyed by a comfortable majority previously Modi embarked on his premiership in 2014 by terming Parliament as 'temple of democracy' and the Constitution as the nation's 'only Holy text'.
With that majority no longer propping him up, it is time that Modi finally pays obeisance in that temple and upholds the Holy Book.
This can be best done by yielding on the Deputy Speaker -- after all, Article 93 categorically states that Lok Sabha shall 'as soon as may be choose two members of the House to be respectively Speaker and Deputy Speaker'.
Modi navigated the 17th Lok Sabha in violation of this clause. The composition of the present House will not permit this and it will be wise to eat humble pie now for relatively trouble free sessions in Parliament.
Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay is an author and journalist based in Delhi-NCR.
His latest book is The Demolition, The Verdict and The Temple: The Definitive Book on the Ram Mandir Project.
He is also the author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times.
Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com
