10 wired tips for our Parliamentarians

“Baith Jaaiye, Baith Jaaiye” is the most frequent word the Loksabha speaker Madam Meira Kumar utters since she has taken over the post. Previously Mr. Purno Sangama, whom I regard very high as a speaker, used to shout “Pleess Pleess” more frequently. I have never seen a speaker since or after or even before Mr. Sangama who has an effect on our naughty school boyish parliamentarians. He used to even scold and show the importance of being MP whenever it was needed. Where Madam Meira Kumar seems to be helpless the Leftie old war horse Somnath Chatterjee was neither as powerful as Sangma was or nor as helpless as Madam Meira Kumar. But he used to get emotional and that helped him few times I believe. 

These days our learned opposition members are opposing P.Chidambaram’s very presence in the house. Logically or even if you are staunch fan of the opposition party, you probably won’t like to support this move. He is yet to be charged in 2G scam, though there are suspicions on him raised by good old Dr. Subramaniam Swamy. But on that basis just to gain political points, one should not allow to disrupt the parliament. As far as I know parliament and Assemblies and Municipal Councils are the only places where the “problems” of people must be discussed. No matter what ever the minister or a person in the ruling bench is, one must give time to address the people’s problem and not the petty political issues. Those can be gained when you organize rallies or yatras and during election speeches or go to courts directly to get rid of your problems or doubts. Parliament must always function. That’s my honest belief. I am sure plenty of us share the same feeling, but those who run the parliament never cared, either they are in opposition or in ruling party. 

Meira Kumar,, current speaker of Loksabha 

It is not that current opposition is doing this for the first time in the history of parliament, those who are in treasury benches today used to do the same when they were in opposition and we have witnessed that also. There is a right to oppose in democracy. Like many other rights this right should also be used with plenty of thought. Like freedom of speech should not be used to abuse someone, freedom to oppose should not be used in such a way that entire administration fails to function. But then almost all the parties across the nation finding it difficult to get new ways to oppose. They always feel that there are no other way to show your opposition then start shouting slogans and coming in to the well of the house and try to attract the attention of people as well as speaker. 

I have given a long thought on this and found out some very innovative ways to oppose in Loksabha or in Assembly. So that our opposition parties across India can use it. They may not be attractive or fruitful to begin with but slowly if they use them frequently, they may get success. So let’s have a look on it.

1.  Walk out: This is tried and tested formula by our opposition. When congress used to have huge and comfortable strengths in parliament or in state assemblies, and when opposition was also innocent and humble enough then today, used to just walk out of the house. Better to leave the place where you are not heard rather than try the futile exercise of shouting and being heard. If half of the house is empty even treasury benches will feel bore and will come to you and plea to come back, like many of the husbands do when their wives go to her maika , “roothna manana you know”.

2. Men (and women) in BLACK:  Wearing black arm bands is another historically proven way of showing your dissent. At least you get noticed that you are opposing something. If that doesn’t make you happy or you feel you get unnoticed  by just wearing black arm band, then why not wearing all cloths in black colour? Yes why not? Black Kurta, Black Dhoti, Black topi, Black saree…just imagine how entire half of Loksabha looks in  black? There will be certain questions from treasury regarding this and you will immediately get noticed. Once that’s done you can tell them the reason of your opposition and threat them to wear them till your demands are not met.

3. Gandhiji ke teen Bandar: Today it is not like in 50s, 60s, 70s or 80s that opposition has small numbers. Except in few assemblies every where we can have large number of opposition members. They can be divided in to 3 parts. One will put their palms on their lips, other section on their eyes and remaining one on their ears. Probably the best way to show your opposition. Certainly you can show your plight that “this government has totally lost it and not allowing the opposition (means the people of India yaar, samjha karo) to speak, see or hear”. Gandhiji must have foreseen the problem of Indian opposition in this century, way back in early last century, then only he “liked” (no Facebook on those days dudes!!) these three bandars.

4. Show your back: Another great idea sirjee. The government people would love to see your dull faces when they reject your demands. Since you are not going to shout or march to the well of the house, why not seating  backwards? Yes the first raw to last one every one just turn 180 degrees and show their back to great Pranab’das and Chidambarams. The opposition can certainly take part in the debates while doing this. Just they need to care about is “to sit back and enjoy”. What will happen then is that government people will feel uncomfortable, because it is scientifically proven that eye to eye contact conveys the message better then “back to eye” or vise versa. Who knows they may surrender to your demands too. Imagine Pranab’da and Manmohansinghjee calling Advanijee and Yashwantsinha “aji sunte ho?” when they face their backs? They will definitely put their arms down and ready to discuss.

5. Stand Up: Well I am not sure whether this idea will be liked, because many of our Netas must already have “knee replacements”, not because they always give “kneejerk” reactions, but because of their age. The idea is to stand for entire session of parliament without shouting and still participating in debates. I know the current speaker’s favorite lines are “baith jaaiye baith jaaiye” so opposition people may need her prior nod. If they get it, then nothing like it. The only problem is that government people may think, by mistake that entire opposition is giving them “standing ovation”. So opposition must convey through the speaker, that they are infact not giving them standing ovation but they are showing novel idea to oppose.

6. Munnabhai Estyle: The so called “Gandhigiri” advised by Munnabhai can also be tried. Every opposition member should bring equal number of bouquets for every member of government side MPs. Yes they can also attach a card of “Get Well Soon” if they are really “sick” of them. They can bring new bouquets every hour passed by and thus there will be plenty of bouquets on treasury benches and by lunchtime the ministers may not be able to see through feel uncomfortable and may agree to discuss on which the opposition is adamant. The side effect of this will be the entire Parliament will have some nice fragrance and room fresheners will be unused for that day. That will save plenty of money to exchequer too, isn’t it? Just one thing to keep in mind that they should not do this on 14^th of February if the session is “on” on that day.

7. “Anna-Giri”: Not Azha-giri, off course because we want you guys to speak also, when allowed to. Anna Hazare in recent days has done two great things. One is fasting and other is “maun vrat”. Maun Vrat can be observed with above given ideas. So what remained is fasting. I know very less Netas will be queuing up for this but still I request them to read this fully.  There are two options. Either fast till session is on. I mean for whatever days the session lasts they can fast. Try not to do this during Budget session, because I heard that is long and comes in two parts. The other idea is to have fast per day. Means, they can fast when at 11 am session starts and break it when it ends in the evening. I feel that is the smartest way to do isn’t it? The effect of this will be the rates of already cheap food of Parliament canteen will go further down because of lack of takers. So government people will start asking and may ask opposition people to withdraw their fast so they can stop loss to parliament accounts. 

8.  Filmy dialogues: Daily discussion in Hindi, English, Tamil or any other language may be boring some times. Ministers are always ready to answer. But if opposition people want to tease them they can give a twist to show their opposition by asking questions in Filmi dialogues. For example they can ask “Kitne aadmi they?” to know the exact number of people involved in 2G, CWG and other scams. Or they can ask Sharad Pawar  “Aaj Raja ke paas itne crore hai, Kanni ke paas itne crore hai, Kalmadi ke paas itne crore hai, tumhar paas kya hai hain?”. Sharadbhau may get confused and feel outta answer, but being seasoned politician he may calmly reply like Shashi Kapoor replied originally, “Mere paas sirf 12 crore hain” . The opposition may use this idea for their inside benefit too. Recently we have seen Advanijee in tears for many times. Arun Jaitley can easy say “Babu Moshai, I hate tears”.

Navjotsingh Sidhu (MP-Amritsar) 

9. Unleash Sidhu: It is said that, if nothing works, then “Brahmastra” works.  When you have Navjotsingh Sidhu in your batting line up, oops, in your party, you better use him, but carefully. Because if used early he may backfire and if used late…then may backfire too. You just tell Sidhu to start speaking; he can do that for entire Budget session without stopping, even when Budget session has few days of break in between. That may help the speaker. She has to handle only one person, though we are sure that even then it is not easy. The government people will get tired by half hour and may get ready to discuss what opposition wants. Then the onus will be on opposition to stop Sidhu and let him know that our demands are accepted.  But as I said he is your “Brahmastra” so must be used judiciously. 

10. Shot the gun:  Nope, I am not advocating any violence here. What I want that somehow, opposition should manage to bring their own Shatrughan Sinha to both houses and let him just  say “Abey Khamosh!” and that may do the trick. The entire treasury will go silent and will allow the opposition to put their case easily. Again this option should only be used when above 9 doesn’t work.

Hope our leaders will be happy to read this, if they ever read such stuffs. They have plenty of options to oppose now. They can even moderate or edit on this after doing some research. I do not hold any copyright on this. My only point is that all the lawmakers must complete their stipulated days of work. People are worried about the money goes wasted when there is disruption. But that money was going to be used in any case whether parliament runs or not. Plus we have spend plenty of money on those large scale industry of scams, hence if few more goes down the drain, its fine...our hearts are large may be our pockets are not. But only thing is that the huge number of pending bills must be entertained and discussed faster. We need rule of law to remain checked. We get our salaries cut if we do not go to office just to attend our ill brothers and sisters at the hospitals. You do not have such an emergency. If there is any is that how you can make our living standards high and for that you need to discuss and pass laws. 

Thanks for reading…..

Dessert Storm!! 

Once Loksabha speaker Mr. Balram Jhakhar asked the then MP and bollywood icon, Mr. Amitabh Bachchan to seat down twice, when he was already sitting. Mr. Jhakhar later realized that Mr. Bachan is so tall that he is actually seems to have been standing. Later he (Mr. Bachchan) used the same situation in different way in his movie “Sharaabi”, when he asked Mukri to seat down. 

-Not confirmed, but heard somewhere.