Govt calls all-party meet on Iran war; Oppn has ‘zero expectations of honest answers’

Amid mounting criticism of its inconsistent response to the ongoing war in West Asia and lack of preparedness for the conflict’s economic aftermath for India, the Centre has called an all-party meeting on Wednesday (March 25).

While the Centre remains opposed to a discussion in Parliament on the crisis that began with the US-Israel joint offensive against Iran over three weeks ago, the meeting comes in the wake of Prime Minister Narendra Modi finally breaking his silence in Parliament on the Centre’s response to the war’s repercussions on India. On Tuesday, Modi reiterated in Rajya Sabha the statement he had made in Lok Sabha a day earlier on the ongoing efforts by his government to mitigate the war’s impact on India’s energy security, in particular, and the economy in general.

In both Houses of Parliament, however, the Opposition’s request to allow a discussion on the war’s impact on India and on Modi’s statement was rejected by the presiding officers. At noon on Tuesday, two hours before Modi’s statement in the Upper House, Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge told Chairman CP Radhakrishnan that he was still awaiting a ruling on the Rule 176 notice for a short duration discussion on the West Asia crisis that he had submitted two weeks ago.

Modi puts up a brave face

Modi’s statement in both Houses of Parliament conceded the challenges that the war had created for India while maintaining, predictably, that his government had things under control. While recognising that the war had precipitated a “severe energy crisis across the world” with implications for India that are “worrisome”, Modi admitted that “routine supplies of essential goods such as petrol, diesel, gas, and fertilizers are disrupted”.

Also read: Congress slams PM Modi’s West Asia Lok Sabha speech, flags LPG concerns

The Prime Minister told Parliament that continuous diplomatic efforts were being made “to ensure the safe passage of Indian ships” through the Strait of Hormuz while claiming that “India has suggested dialogue as the only path to resolving this problem”.

“The current crisis has shaken the global economy. The damage already caused in West Asia will take the world a long time to recover from. Continuous efforts are being made to ensure that India suffers the least possible impact. The fundamentals of our economy are strong, and the government is closely monitoring the rapidly changing situation. The government is working with a strategy to address short-term, medium-term, and long-term impacts,” Modi said.

Parallels between COVID and war

The Prime Minister also informed the Rajya Sabha that aside from constituting an inter-ministerial group to assess regularly the difficulties “arising in our imports and exports”, he had also constituted, on Monday, “seven empowered groups” which have been tasked with acting “swiftly and strategically on issues such as supply chains, petrol and diesel, fertilizers, gas, and inflation.”

Repeatedly drawing parallels with how India unitedly withstood the challenges of the COVID pandemic, Modi acknowledged that the current crisis was no less severe, even if it is “of a different nature”, and required a similarly united response. In a rare moment of rising above political rhetoric, the Prime Minister described the current situation as a “major test for Team India” and called for “combined efforts of all state governments and the central government...to face this grave global crisis effectively”.

Also read: Iran war tests India’s strategic autonomy as it walks a diplomatic tightrope

If the Opposition, expectedly, remained unimpressed, it was, perhaps, due to the government’s own record of shutting out any criticism in the past and its steadfast refusal in the present to have a transparent dialogue in Parliament on the concerns arising out of the West Asia crisis.

Caustic remarks by Rahul Gandhi

Leaders from various INDIA bloc constituents told The Federal that while their respective parties will attend the all-party meeting on Wednesday, they shall go with “zero expectations of honest answers” from the government. With the government not clarifying as yet whether the meeting will be chaired by Modi or some other senior minister, the Opposition leaders also questioned the seriousness of the Centre in “listening to diverse views and opinions coming from the Opposition”.

Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, who was missing from the Lower House during Modi’s statement on Monday, told reporters that while he had been invited to the all-party meeting, he will not attend it since he has a prior campaign commitment in poll-bound Kerala. Rahul, however, made it known that he did not expect the all-party meeting to yield anything meaningful.

India’s current foreign policy, he said, had become a “universal joke” because it had been reduced to the “Prime Minister’s personal foreign policy”. Doubling down with his oft-repeated claim that Modi had “surrendered” India’s strategic and economic interests to the United States of America, the Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition said US president Donald Trump “knows exactly what Mr Modi can do and cannot do... if the Prime Minister is compromised, then our foreign policy is compromised.”

Also read: Trump dials PM Modi, West Asia conflict, Strait of Hormuz issue discussed

Dubbing Modi’s statements made in Parliament as “irrelevant”, Rahul also mocked the prime minister for likening the government’s response to the West Asia crisis with how India dealt with the COVID pandemic, saying “he has forgotten what they did during COVID—the number of people who died, the tragedies that unfolded”. He also alleged that Modi will continue to do “whatever the US and Israel tell him to do”.

Questions by Kharge

With a similarly stinging tenor, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge also said that Modi’s statement in Parliament “comes too late and raises more questions than it answers”. The Rajya Sabha’s Leader of Opposition, who is in touch with other INDIA bloc leaders in a bid to formulate a united stand of the Opposition at the all-party meeting, said there were “three fundamental questions” that the government must give clear answers to.

Slamming Modi for an “inconsistent and swinging diplomatic posture”, Kharge said the Prime Minister had “altered the balance of India’s strategic autonomy” and the diplomatic consequences India faces in wake of the West Asia crisis flowed from Modi’s recent visit to Israel, which had concluded just 48 hours before the US-Israel joint strikes at Iran. “Why did the Prime Minister fail to take Parliament and the nation into confidence about this apparent shift, and what concrete steps have been taken to restore India’s strategic autonomy?” Kharge demanded.

Also read: Suspicious trades before Trump’s Iran strike pause yield Rs 840 crore in minutes

The Congress president also pointed out that nearly 40 Indian-flagged ships, carrying around 1,100 sailors, remain stranded in the Strait of Hormuz, with cargo valued at approximately Rs 10,000 crore. “Despite the Prime Minister personally speaking to the Iranian President twice, and the External Affairs Minister engaging multiple times with his Iranian counterpart, why has India failed to secure safe passage for its own vessels? Why are countries like China, Russia, Japan, along with other ‘friendly nations’, being granted safe transit, while Indian ships remain stuck?” Kharge added.

Lastly, the Congress chief said that if Modi’s claims about diversification of energy imports easing disruptions in domestic LPG supply are true, then “why are citizens still facing shortages, long queues, black marketing, and sharp price rises across the country?”

Has India’s foreign policy collapsed?

Modi’s decision to evade any reference to the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the early days of the US-Israel joint strikes and his failure to condemn US and Israel for threatening Iran’s sovereignty has also drawn sharp criticism from the Opposition.

Stating that the Prime Minister should have “had the courage to denounce the aggression by the United States and Israel against Iran and express his condolences for Ayatollah Khamenei”, Samajwadi Party MP Dharmendra Yadav told The Federal, “we are going to raise this in the all-party meeting too... our foreign policy seems to have collapsed completely under this government; Iran has been an old ally but our Prime Minister can’t even stand up in Parliament and condemn unprovoked attacks on Iran’s sovereignty and the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader and the government will not even allow the Opposition to raise this in Parliament”.

Also read: West Asia conflict may have prolonged impact, warns PM Modi, urges preparedness

Sources said while Opposition leaders will attend Wednesday’s meeting and present their views, they will continue to demand a discussion in Parliament on the West Asia crisis. The likelihood of the government conceding the Opposition’s request, however, looks unlikely given that the budget session is set to conclude on April 2 and the government already has plans of introducing key amendments to the women’s reservation law in Parliament next week, which it had conveniently skipped listing on the agenda when the session was first called.