Madhya Pradesh: BJP ministers face angry crowds on their state tour

Several BJP leaders in Madhya Pradesh are touring the state to tell the people about the achievements of the Modi and Shivraj Singh Chouhan governments. But, according to reports, most of these ministers are having to face hostile crowds. It appears the “bure din” of BJP have arrived.

News reports reaching Bhopal indicate that where ever the leaders have gone, they have been ‘greeted’ with angry slogans asking them them to go back. This was what stared at ministers Surendra Patwa, Satya Prakash Meena; MPs Faggan Singh Kulaste, Anup Mishra (nephew of Atal Behari Vajpayee), Gyan Singh; and MLAs Shailendra Jain and Rameshwar Sharma.

In Bhopal, residents of Kolar have prepared garlands of old shoes to ‘honour’ the BJP leaders. People have been complaining that the party had made several promises to solve their problems but nothing has been done to solve them.

Commenting on this, the Congress spokesperson said that these incidents show that the BJP has already lost the confidence of the people.

It also appears that the BJP government is afraid to allow discussion on several issues which the Opposition wants to raise. The BJP has been using holding short sessions of the Vidhan Sabha and it is using all tricks in its book to provent the moving of a no confidence motion.

It did not allow the admission of no confidence motion in the last Vidhan Sabha session and the same appears to be the fate of the no confidence motion during the current five-day session, perhaps the shortest in the history of the state Vidhan Sabha.

According to an analysis done by a leading English daily, the current Vidhan Sabha- 14th in the history of Madhya Pradesh – will have the dubious distinction of the lowest number of sittings in a full term house. If the current session, the last, ends in five days, it will have met for 133 days in the five years, leaving a host of issues of public concern unanswered.

The only times there were fewer sittings were in the sixth and ninth Vidhan Sabhas, when the House did not last five years and in 1956, when the first Vidhan Sabha convened following creation of Madhya Pradesh. The opening house had just one session of 32 days and 16 meetings. The second Vidhan Sabha between 1957 and 1962, had 277 meetings. The ninth Vidhan Sabha, which lasted only three years (1990-1992) with BJP stalwart Sunderlaal Patwa at the helm, had 123 meetings – only 10 less than the current, full term Vidhan Sabha.

The decade of Digvijaya Singh in Madhya Pradesh saw a rise in assembly meetings – 282 in his first term (1993-98) and 289 in the second (1998-2003).

After BJP came to power in the 12th Vidhan Sabha in 2003, the number of sittings started dropping, with the House meeting for 159 days between 2003-2008 and 167 days in the 13th Vidhan Sabha ( 2008-2013).

Asked why there are ever fewer sittings, Speaker Sitasharan Sharma said, “T have very little role in deciding either the time or duration of Vidhan Sabha. It’s the state government and the Governor who decide the dates and duration. I only send one set of dates that is received from the state government to the Governor for notification. I am the presiding officer, but not the deciding officer”.

Leader of the Opposition Ajay Singh scathingly said, “Short durations of the House reflect BJP’s mindset. It doesn’t have faith, either in democracy or in democratic institutions. They always run away from questions but what they are doing is extremely dangerous for democracy.”

Now, as the 14th Vidhan Sabha nears completion, a lot that the state government had promised in the House remains unfulfilled and a number of questions asked by members were not properly answered.

Besides preventing debate on a no confidence motion, the government has failed to even discuss reports of various Vidhan Sabha committees during the 14 years of BJP rule. Reports of public accounts committee and estimates committee did not figure on the agenda of the Vidhan Sabha.

If a longer session is held then it would give and opportunity to the Opposition to expose the misdeeds of the government. Vyapam which is one of the biggest scam of independent India has not been thoroughly debated. The recent e-tender scam, which is bigger that Vyapam, has not figured in the Vidhan Sabha proceedings. The current five-day session is the last session of the present Vidhan Sabha. If proper evaluation is done it may appear to be the darkest period of the state’s greatest democratic institution.