Wasting time on GST

On January 8, Union minister for parliamentary affairs, M. Venkaiah Naidu dropped in for a presumed cuppa and much more at Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s residence. In his interaction with the media, Mr Naidu revealed his single-point agenda: convince the Congress chief that after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s discussion with her and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Congress shouldn’t hold back support to the Goods and Services Tax Bill. Reports also suggested that the government was keen to convince the Congress of an early Budget Session to ensure that the GST Bill was passed in the forthcoming session. The Congress president reserved her comments, while colleagues speaking to the media said the party wanted certain sections of the bill reworked and the response from government was awaited. There has been little movement in resolving technical issues which sound Greek to the average person and Congressmen have dismissed the government’s “reaching out” exercise as little but optics.

The government through various channels — back and upfront — has also entered into dialogue with other Opposition parties and those parties that display equipoise whenever confrontation between government and Opposition looms. All efforts of the government are aimed at securing parliamentary approval for the GST Bill. The government’s anxiety to ensure passage of this contentious bill is a throwback to the way Mr Modi and his colleagues built the case for the Land Acquisition Bill last year.

Without delving into the issue of necessity — or lack of it — of a combined indirect tax law, it must be recalled that the Land Bill last year was presented as the universal remedy for all problems and that the government’s reforms agenda would come unstuck with its non-passage. This line of reasoning has not changed except that instead of the Land Bill, government publicists are now talking about the GST Bill when criticising Opposition parties for holding the government to ransom in the Rajya Sabha. Last year we saw increased depiction of the Upper House as an assembly of unelectable leaders (forgetting that the finance minister too was one of them) and that it was time to challenge their tyranny.

The sentiment remains unchanged though the new phrases are “alternate mechanisms” and “tricks”. The jargon may have changed but there is no hiding the fact that a joint sitting of Parliament is being talked about as a threat. Arun Jaitley contends that the mid-command of the Congress Party is agreeable to doing business with the government, but the Gandhis are blocking this because the tactic provides “sadistic pleasure”. But will political disparagement work when the government is attempting to evolve a parliamentary strategy? Is
Mr Jaitley slowly building the case for mid-term polls — before it gets too late for the party to win a second tenure — by arguing that since it is impossible for government to function smoothly, the Bharatiya Janata Party requires a more emphatic mandate than the one they got.

When he was Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee in a speech in Lok Sabha had talked about the need for government and Opposition to work together. To buttress his case he recalled the episode when P.V. Narasimha Rao as Prime Minister deputed Mr Vajpayee to head an Indian delegation to Geneva on a treacherous round of multilateral talks when India was under fire for its human rights record in Jammu and Kashmir. But such cooperation between ruling party and Opposition is possible only in the event of an initiative from the government. In the present case, relations between Mr Modi and the Congress soured from the outset after the refusal to accord Leader of Opposition status to the Congress. Subsequently, the Prime Minister and his closest aides too made constant jibes about Mrs Gandhi and her family, a tactic that continues and will not make the two any more friendly. Consequently, on the eve of every parliamentary session the biggest question is if any business besides the most essential will be transacted.

While the government, from Prime Minister downward, made no effort to make its task easier, the Congress Party too remains clueless on its strategy to escape the morass it has slipped into. Because elections in India are fought on the basis of performance — or its absence — of the incumbent and not on programmatic issues, the Opposition attempts to block key legislation. But repeated obstruction of Parliament would also not help the Congress as wastage of time and resources gets reported superficially in abundance in the media. If it wishes to convince people that its tactics of converting the two Houses into public akharas every morning is correct, then it has to do so with reason and not remain stricken with frenzy as in Parliament.

In the run-up to the Budget Session it makes little sense for Mr Modi to allow his ministers to invest so heavily in the passage of the GST Bill. Even if this is passed in 2016, making the new law act effectively and efficiently will remain a challenge for administrators for years. It will not be a quick fix for the problems that have led to the erosion of electoral support for the BJP in 2015.

Unruly behaviour in Parliament is the norm and not exception. It is no longer restricted to the Zero Hour. Both government and the largest Opposition party are obliged to take Parliament more seriously and the mutual trading of accusations must end. Lessons can be drawn from the past and a beginning could be made if the government comes out to share with Opposition information on issues of national security. Mr Modi seeks international support to get Pakistan to take action against terror in a routine manner. His cause will not be harmed if he drew the Congress leadership too into consultation. If there is no turnaround on the part of Mr Modi and his team, another session will be a virtual washout.