Mr Rajiv Gandhi cannot disown responsibility for the shameful behaviour of Congress ministers and MPs in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. He was present in the House when, among others, Mr Chidambaram, Mr Rajesh Pilot and Mr Bhajan Lal (all ministers) started challenging the Chairman’s ruling allowing Mr P. Upendra of the Telugu Desam to make a special mention of expenditure by the Andhra Pradesh Governor, Ms Kumudben Joshi, in excess of the guidelines laid down by the Prime Minister’s own Home ministry. And he failed to restrain them. That is enough to establish his responsibility for the blatant demonstration of lack of respect for the Chairman not by some Congress backbenchers, but by members of the Council of Ministers. Opposition leaders have charged that the Prime Minister himself encouraged them to defy the chair. We are in no position to say whether or not this was, in fact, the case. But it is evident that he did not discourage them. For they defied the Chairman when he was present in the House. And as if this was not a strong enough expression of an endorsement, even if indirect, for their shocking performance, he left the House amidst the prevailing confusion, leaving his over-enthusiastic Ministers free to engage in their shenanigans. It is difficult to recall another shocking episode of this kind in the history of the Indian Parliament.
The Congress ministers and MPs would have us believe that they persisted in their vehement opposition to the special mention of the Andhra Pradesh Governor’s expenditure by Mr Upendra out of their regard for the rights of state legislatures. Surely, they would find it difficult to locate an Indian who is willing to take them at their word. At least since 1967, the Congress leadership has been known for its disregard for the rights of states, so much so it is now quite a task to list the number of occasions when it has used Governors to manipulate state politics. The Congress ministers and MPs were clearly guided, not by any constitutional consideration, but by their determination to avoid a reference to the expenditure incurred by Ms Kumudben Joshi in Hyderabad. But why? Quite candidly, we are baffled. The Andhra Pradesh state government has already given out details of the expenditure in excess of the Home ministry’s guidelines and the press has published these details. A repetition of the same details by Mr Upendra in the Rajya Sabha would not have exposed Ms Joshi to fresh criticism. Indeed, the Indian people have got so used to their dignitaries living like the great Moghuls, that they take such disclosures easily in their stride. All in all, it would appear that the Congress ministers and MPs in the Rajya Sabha were just being cussed.
It would be an exaggeration to suggest that their defiance of the Chairman was tantamount to an indirect vote of no confidence in him. Apparently, it did not occur to them that Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma would treat it as such and offer to quit. But even if in their excitement and intoxication with power they had, to begin with, convinced themselves that they would succeed in browbeating him, they should have seen light when he refused to be pushed around. Obviously, they did not have a measure of the man they were willfully confronting. Obviously they thought that, like almost all others, he too is an office-seeker: They were clearly shocked when they discovered that this old Congress horse was made of sterner stuff. Be that as it may, Dr Sharma has upheld the dignity of the office he holds. Such men are rare in today’s India. They need to be cherished.