Prime Minister Narendra Modi invokes Rajiv, Nehru for peace in Parliament what an irony. It was he who was against the family legacy and its contribution to Indian polity. Modi seeing the stalling of Parliament said nation suffers if House sessions are not fruitful. What happened Mr Prime Minister during the last leg of Manmohan Singh-led UPA Government when the House went without transacting any business and your present Finance Minister Arun Jaitely at that time had claimed as a fundamental right to disrupt Parliament by raising slogans and opposing UPA’s policy . Today BJP is getting the taste of same medicine and the saying ‘as you sow, so shall you reap’. Speeches by Modi and Rahul Gandhi showed how you can be sarcastic and cut to the bone in political debate, but can do so without necessarily dripping vitriol and unpleasantness – as opposed to, say, HRD Minister Smriti Irani’s overwrought histrionics which Parliament had witnessed earlier. If Rahul Gandhi punched with the importance of MGNREGA and the NDA Government’s adoption of it despite earlier criticisms, the JNU issue and the Vemula case, Modi counterpunched by critiquing Congress’s failures, Rahul’s leadership and his tearing up of a UPA Cabinet Ordinance. Modi provided figures on financial devolution with states getting over 20 per cent more money after the 14th Finance Commission’s recommendations, and compared his government’s funding for railway development (Rs 32,587 crore in two years) with the UPA’s 10-year annual average of Rs 9,291crore. On issues like the GST Bill, job creation and relief to the agrarian sector and rural India, both government and opposition have the same intent. Politicians exist to fight wider political battles but surely they can do so while also ensuring that important government business and legislation is not held hostage.
