From black day to blackout
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: February 19 , 2014 -

If the unprecedented pandemonium created by the incident of spraying pepper spray inside the Lok Sabha by Lagadapati Rajagopal, an anti-Telengana State and expelled Congress MP from Vijaywada, to disrupt introduction of the controversial Bill to create a new State called Telengana by bifurcating Andhra Pradesh on February 13 was a Black Day in the history of Indian Parliament, then the unholy alliance of the ruling Congress and the opposition BJP coming together to raise their voices in unison for clearing such a historic, yet controversial Bill without any debate and simply through voice vote behind the closed doors of Lok Sabha with live broadcast of the proceedings black-out completely on February 18 would surely go down in the history of Indian Parliament as the blackest day, literally as well as figuratively.

Those who were gluing to their TV sets waiting for some meaningful discussion on the contentious issue of creation of Telangana as the 29th State of India after all those unruly parliamentarians have been shown the door were in for a shock when their TV screenings went off all of sudden just after the House resumed its session following the first adjournment in the morning at around 3 pm and remained flashing ‘House Adjourned Sine Die’.

But the proceeding went on inside the House with all doors including that of the media gallery closed for the next 90 minutes during which clause by clause consideration of the Bill was taken up before its final passage by voice vote.

While the incident of black out of House proceedings has once again shown how the political parties in India can go to any extent for pushing a Bill, regardless of its merits and demerits and and howsoever controversial it may be, if they sense they could extract some political mileage out of it, what has caught our attention is the subsequent explanation given for the questionable blackout and the catfight that followed between the two partners of unholy alliance.

Even though Congress Minister Rajeev Shukla had earlier defended the black out saying Speaker Meira Kumar reserved the right to order a blackout if things went out of control and External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid had toed the line called it as the Speaker’s prerogative, representatives of the UPA Government later on have to come up with an elaborate effort to cover up the manipulation contending that the back out was neither intentional nor dictated and that it was not ordered by the Speaker at all.

The telecast got interrupted simply due to a technical glitch. On the other hand, Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj, after having given her party’s full backing in passing of the controversial Bill in the most democratic manner, simply because it would take away the headache over Telengana issue if BJP comes to power at the Centre, had the temerity of saying that manner in which the Bill has been passed is condemnable.

But the drama over clearance of Telengana Bill comes to a full circle when Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde belittled the blackout of denying the citizens their basic right to information as rather ordinary occurrence, when he said, “There are situations when you have to do this (black out the Parliament proceedings). These things happen."

Well, from black day to blackout, saga of ignominy of Indian Parliament continues.