Fate of no-trust motion against Dhankhar unclear but INDIA gets news reason to unite

There is no word yet on whether the Opposition INDIA bloc’s resolution seeking the removal of Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar will be taken up for discussion in the ongoing winter session of Parliament.

However, on Wednesday (December 11), the broad contours of the Centre’s defence of the Rajya Sabha Chairman and the INDIA bloc’s justification for its unprecedented move became abundantly clear.

Treasury’s defence of Dhankhar

As Rajya Sabha convened on Wednesday morning with Dhankhar presiding over the proceedings — despite the pendency of resolution seeking his removal as Chairman of the House — the Treasury Benches sprang to his defence.

Leader of the House, JP Nadda, dubbed the no confidence motion moved an attempt to “distract and deviate” attention from the Centre’s attacks at Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia Gandhi over her alleged “relationship” with controversial philanthropist George Soros and her party’s “attempts to destabilise India”.

If Nadda raised the bogey of hyper-nationalism, replete with references to the “massive strides” BJP perceives the country has made in the economic sphere under the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Parliamentary Affairs minister Kiren Rijiju brought in Dhankhar’s credentials as the “son of a farmer” to cultivate a more social constituency.

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Last resort, says Opposition

Given no chance by Dhankhar, and later Deputy Chairman Harivansh, to respond to the blistering attacks made by the Treasury Benches against Sonia, Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and the Congress, as well as the INDIA bloc, hit back with a press conference later in the day.

With Congress president and Rajya Sabha’s Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge leading the charge in slamming Dhankhar as the “biggest disruptor of House proceedings”, INDIA bloc MPs stressed that they were compelled to move the motion as a last resort “to safeguard the Constitution and protect the integrity of our democracy”.

“Without following Constitution and Constitutional procedures, he acts for the party in power. He is working as a spokesperson of the government in hope for his next promotion. I do not hesitate to say that the Chairman himself is the biggest disruptor in Rajya Sabha. If the House is disrupted, the biggest reason is the Chairman... we are fed up with his partiality; his actions aren’t just a breach of protocol but a betrayal of the Constitution and of the people of India,” Kharge added.

Show of unity

The INDIA bloc press conference also adroitly doubled up as a show of unity at a time when disagreements among constituents of the group over who must lead it and the issues it must corner the Centre on are being raucously highlighted by a section of the media.

Parliament is scheduled to have a discussion on the Constitution in the final lap of its ongoing session — on December 13 and 14 in the Lok Sabha and on December 16 and 17 in the Rajya Sabha. With the shadow of the resolution seeking Dhankhar’s removal and the Centre’s acerbic attacks at the Congress over the Sonia-Soros link looming large, the Rajya Sabha (as also the Lok Sabha) is widely expected to see a heated exchange between the Treasury and Opposition Benches.

In this backdrop, sources on both sides of the political divide told The Federal that the discussion on the Constitution, particularly in the Rajya Sabha, could very well boil down to a powwow that elaborates further on the lines of attack that the Centre and the Opposition pressed ahead with on Wednesday.

Also read: RJD chief Lalu Prasad bats for Mamata as INDIA bloc leader

Sonia-Soros “link”, identity politics

“So far, on the Constitution, the only real ammunition that the Centre had against the INDIA bloc was on the Congress’s chequered track record — the Emergency, the dismissal of non-Congress governments, the frequent imposition of President’s Rule by various Congress governments. All these things have been said countless times but the latest reports of Sonia-Soros link are explosive... the allegations can be given a good spin by the BJP as they deal with the country’s sovereignty, integrity, stability, security, economic interests... Modi will have a field day attacking the Congress and he will question the nationalism of other INDIA parties because of their alliance with the Congress... how can the INDIA bloc speak of saving the Constitution while its largest party is working to destabilise the country,” a senior leader of the ruling NDA told The Federal.

Rijiju’s attempt at flagging the no confidence motion against Dhankhar as a “brazen attempt” to “malign the son of a farmer” is also straight out of the BJP’s playbook of using identity politics to the hilt. Dhankhar’s credentials as a “kisanputra” (farmer’s son) were also highlighted by the BJP when it chose him as the NDA’s nominee for the vice-presidential elections in July 2022; a time when the party was battling charges of apathy towards the agrarian community.

“Farmer” identity

Over the past three years, Dhankhar and the BJP have both used the Vice President’s “farmer” background to gain political mileage each time the Opposition has tried to attack the BJP for its brutal crackdowns against protesting farmers. Even in the ongoing winter session, when INDIA bloc MPs moved adjournment motions in the Rajya Sabha to discuss the plight of farmers, thousands of whom were then back protesting at Delhi’s Shambhu border facing tear gas shelling by the police and paramilitary forces, Dhankhar had mocked them for “faking concern” about the community.

By framing the justification for seeking Dhankhar’s removal from office as a “last resort” to safeguard an imperilled democracy and the Constitution, the INDIA bloc too is trying to breathe fresh life into its political narrative of “saving the Constitution” from the BJP. This narrative had brought impressive electoral dividends for the INDIA bloc in the June Lok Sabha polls but has since lost its punch owing to the BJP’s recent electoral triumphs in Maharashtra, Haryana and the Jammu region of J&K.

Also watch: No-trust notice: What are Dhankar's options now?

A new reason to unite

The Congress’s disastrous assembly poll performance in these states and the party leadership’s obstinate refusal to diversify its attacks against the BJP beyond the “Modi-Adani partnership” taunts has triggered considerable unease against it within the INDIA bloc. Many INDIA bloc constituents, among them the Trinamool Congress, NCP-SP, Shiv Sena-UBT, and even the RJD, have openly backed the idea of considering Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee as the alliance’s face, much to the chagrin of a battered Congress high command.

By pivoting the resolution to de-roster Dhankhar as a continuation of its ‘save Constitution’ narrative, the Congress and its allies have finally found another reason to unite. At Wednesday’s INDIA bloc presser, representatives of the Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi Party, NCP-SP, DMK, Left parties, and the RJD spoke in one voice, echoing the views of Kharge.

The AAP, which could not attend the event as its leadership was given an appointment by the Election Commission at the same time, has also wholeheartedly backed the resolution seeking Dhankhar’s removal as Rajya Sabha Chairman. AAP MP Sanjay Singh told The Federal, “the INDIA bloc is absolutely united on this resolution... we may have some differences but this is a matter of the Constitution, of safeguarding our democracy and its highest temple and on that there will neither be any compromise with the government nor any dissent within our alliance”.

Not much hope of discussion

What may, however, seem ironic is that while the Treasury and Opposition sides are evidently ready with their respective attack and defence strategies on the resolution seeking Dhankhar’s ouster, there is no clarity on when the motion moved by the INDIA bloc will actually be taken up in the Rajya Sabha.

“There is a constitutional requirement of giving 14 days before moving the resolution but when this (resolution) was submitted, there were only nine sittings of Parliament left in the current session. Given the seriousness of the matter, we can only hope that the Chairman shows an urgency in allowing a discussion on it because the Chairman has all the powers to interpret the rules of procedure of running the House but then, since this is a resolution against him, we don’t hold out much hope of the motion being discussed in the current session,” a senior DMK MP told The Federal.

Another INDIA bloc MP said, “the best we can hope is that the Chairman doesn’t hide behind some technical excuse to either reject the motion or say at the end of the current session that it has lapsed... if not in this session, let the resolution be carried forward to the next session (budget session) of Parliament and be taken up within the first few days when the House convenes again.”