The political drama that surrounded the election of the Speaker of the 18th Lok Sabha has many indications of how both the government and the Opposition view the mandate of the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
For the BJP and specifically Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the repeat nomination of Om Birla for the post of the Speaker and the government being non-committal on the issue of ceding the Deputy Speaker’s post to the Opposition are part of a series of moves made to signal that Mr. Modi is determined to be at 240 Lok Sabha seats what he had been with 303 seats in 2019.
Continuity in selection of Ministers, a refusal to cut deals with the Opposition, and the endorsement of the statement by Mr. Birla on the Emergency, with its attendant references to the subversion of the Constitution by the then Indira Gandhi-led Congress government, incontrovertibly signalled this attitude.
The emphasis on marking the 49th anniversary of the imposition of Emergency is a direct fallout of the election results and the feedback that the BJP has received on how much the narrative that the BJP wanted a brute majority of “400-plus seats” to make radical changes to the Constitution, especially the provisions dealing with reservation, cost the party.
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For the Opposition, exuberant over its performance in Uttar Pradesh, this entire episode has also been a learning process.
While the INDIA bloc came together on the issue of contesting for the Speaker’s post, there were differences on the issue of pressing for the division of votes on the floor of the House on Wednesday after Mr. Birla was elected by voice vote.
Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee claimed that pro tem Speaker Bhartruhari Mahtab did not allow a count of votes, while Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said the party did not seek a division to create “an atmosphere of consensus”.
On Tuesday, the Trinamool had raised the issue that Congress leader K. Suresh’s nomination for the Speaker’s post had been decided without any discussions with it, an oversight that rankled the ruling party in West Bengal especially since the Trinamool’s strike rate against the BJP in the election was much higher than that of the Congress, which had taken a lead on the Speaker’s issue.
For the INDIA bloc, the damage control came a little late and did not help much in the end. For an Opposition striving against the numerical superiority of the Treasury, unity and solidarity in its ranks are its most effective weapons. The Opposition in the 18th Lok Sabha will have to strive towards that.
As for the BJP, the desire to project a full majority despite the cut in numbers may help its morale, but it does not adhere to the nature of the 2024 mandate, that of a return to coalition politics.
