Defiling Parliament
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: February 14, 2014 -
The word, 'Pandemonium', which John Milton had used for describing the capital of Hell in his epic poem, 'Paradise Lost', is, perhaps, an expression too mild for describing the scenes that were witnessed inside as well as outside Lok Sabha, the lower house of the India Parliament, on Thursday.
As a matter of fact, unruly scenes inside Indian Parliament leading to frequent disruption of House proceedings in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha are nothing new, but what was unfolded on Thursday for the entire world to see was simply unprecedented.
Soon after Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde stood up to table the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Bill-2014 that blueprints the creation of India's 29th state to be called Telangana by bifurcating Andhra Pradesh, two sets of MPs, one group for the creation of Telangana and the other opposed to the move, were up for each other's throats.
In the ensuing melee, a glass table-top was smashed, a microphone was yanked from a table and flung and Lagadapati Rajagopal, an MP from Vijaywada, who has been expelled from the Congress earlier for his opposition to the creation of the new State, literally, broke all hell loose by unleashing a can of pepper spray sending everyone in the House including MPs, Lok Sabha officials and even journalists in the media gallery running for cover with teary eyes and coughing violently.
Parliament, they say, is the temple of democracy.
If that is so, then, what MP Lagadapati Rajagopal and his likes have done in the Lok Sabha today surely amounts to committing a serious act of sacrilege - that of defiling the sacred temple of Indian democracy- and it needs to be condemned by all who truly believes in the democratic principles.
As Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar and many other political leaders cutting across party line have observed the conduct of the expelled Congress MP from Vijaywada was not just a disgrace to Indian parliamentary democracy but also a blot on the democracy itself and February 13, Thursday, 2014 would definitely go down in the history of Indian democracy as the blackest day.
However, even if MP Lagadapati Rajagopal (one of the richest parliamentarians and promoter of Lanco group, which has several power projects as well as significant construction and real estate interests in Hyderabad, which is to be part of proposed Telangana) deserves all the condemnations, we also need to understand the working of the Congress party that has led to the shameful act of his own party men.
Creation of Telangana needs resolution of many thorny issues.
But without any giving feasible solution, Congress party has been hell-bent on getting the Telangana bill passed ahead of the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections with an eye on soaring up its votes even if it means suspension or expulsion of its own members and regardless of the fact Andhra Pradesh Assembly had rejected the Bill altogether.
So, Congress party is as much responsible for the ugly pepper spray incident of defiling the Parliament.
It is also a glaring example of how the Congress leadership is fast losing control over its own members, wayward or otherwise, thus debunking of Congressmen falling in line with the party high command's diktat unquestionably.
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