As the suspension of MPs from Parliament continued on Tuesday, its impact on public opinion was barely discernable. Even the news channels that have been covering the stand-off most exhaustively seemed to be veering in other directions, quite obviously responding to viewers’ switching off. People are perplexed about how the breach in Parliament’s security could result in such a divided response from the nation’s representatives. It would have been so much smarter for the opposition to allow attention to remain on the government’s embarrassment, rather than its own shenanigans. If they did want the Home Minister to make a statement, they could have persistently diverted every discussion in the two Sabhas to the subject, rather than create disturbances that cast them in bad light.
Once again there seems to be a miscalculation among the opposition about what will shape public opinion. Everybody’s eyes are on the coming Lok Sabha polls and if it is thought that getting suspended from Parliament will win votes, there has to be another think coming. It would seem that the Congress, in particular, is so demoralised by its recent defeats that it has become incapable of understanding the public mood.
It is to be hoped that the INDI Alliance will focus on the issues that may pay political dividend than waste time on deciding who is to be its prime ministerial candidate. That’s putting the cart before the horse. The dependence on ‘arithmetic’ or incendiary encouragement of caste divides to get them through is lazy thinking. In the present day, an opposition MP has to put in five years of solid hard work in his or her constituency to get re-elected. The Modi Government’s outreach to the common people is very strong and it can only be countered by established political ideologies, such as the Dravidian and anti-Sanatan Dharma approach being pushed vigorously in Tamil Nadu. Unfortunately for the INDI Alliance, that is not a model that can be extended to the rest of India. So, it is an unconscious response to scream and shout to catch people’s attention. The problem is that the volume needs to be continuously increased to retain that attention, which is why the number of suspended MPs has burgeoned. Once the number runs out, what will they do? Without the people’s sympathy, can it become a poll issue? It’s like Kabaddi, you get pushed out of the court, you lose!
