NEW DELHI: S.B.Chavan B.Shankaran and M.L. Fotedar will never live down the fact that they fell asleep in the Lok Sabha when the Union Council of Ministers of which they are senior members was facing its first no confidence motion. But long suffering reporters in Lok Sabha Press Gallery could not help sympathizing with them even though they gleefully noted and reported their slumber.

Anybody who sat through the recent Lok Sabha proceedings would know there is nothing more soporific than a Prime Minister who delivers vacuous hour-long sermons just after lunch or for that matter a debate on a no confidence motion that falls flat on its face

The government won the motion but not with glory. If the Opposition’s attack was sterile as the Prime Minister put it (though his colleague Arjun Singh congratulated Jaswant Singh for a fertile imagination) the government defence was no better. From Minister of State

Santosh Mohan Deb to the Prime Minister himself the heavyweights adorning the Treasury benches were uniformly unimpressive.

Arjun Singh’s speech had more bombast than substance and Manmohan Singh’s was yet another professional’s view on the New Economic Policy. Balram Jakhar a man it should be recalled who presided over the Lok Sabha for 10 long years was so confused and rambling that the BJP effortlessly made mincemeat out of him. Fielding P. Chidambaram as the second ruling party speaker was a tactical error because the Opposition was in no mood to listen to the strictures of a Minister who had been forced step down over a scandal.

As for Narasimha Rao he appeared determined to live up to the title of mauni baba (silent monk) conferred on him by his predecessor in office Chandra Shekhar Journalists who thought that Rao’s performance at his first major press conference last month was the last word in evasion had to revise their opinions after hearing his reply to the no-confidence motion.

While the Prime Minister lectured a listless House on the virtues of his revamped public distribution system he was as good as silent on the controversies dogging his government including Bofors and the bank scam.

Unfazed by the rude laughter that greeted him from the Opposition benches Rao steadfastly maintained that Solankis amnesia would not clear despite the best efforts of the CBI and the Prime Minister himself. But Rao was banning which no uttered these absurdities and so were many of his party colleagues.

The joke unfortunately was on Parliament. The Prime Minister had just demonstrated how difficult it was to make even a barely Stable government accountable Parliament when it will fully chose not to be

However the government’s evasions were not the only reason why the Opposition’s attack proved impotent Ayodhya loomed large over the debate throwing Bofors the bank scam and everything else into the background.

So instead of a defensive government being attacked by a united Opposition what we saw instead was the spectacle of the Janata Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party virtually coming to blows over Ramjanma bhoomi and Babri Masjid while the occupants of the Treasury benches sat back and watched the fun.

The JD and the Left did try to focus their attack on the government instead of the BJP and its comrades in saffron. Such ardent Proponents of BJP-Janata Dal unity as George Fernandes went even further by not saying a word about Ayodhya.

But with the government taking shelter behind the Supreme Court and the Allahabad High Court it was the BJP which inevitably came under fire a pain and Again And despite the pious Pronouncements of L.K-Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee from the front benches the saffron brigade seemed to revel in the acrimony. After all that the irony of Mahant Avaidyanath and Syed Shahabuddin coming together on the same platform to vote against the government was inescapable.

Ayodhya was not the only reason why the Rs 3500 crore bank scam was relegated to the background Opposition leaders vehemently deny that Narasimha Rao has de fused the issue by setting up a Joint Parliamentary Committee to Probe the scam but in effect that seems to be what has happened. While speaking on the no confidence motion both Finance Minister Manmohan Singh and the Prime Minister took shelter behind the hypo esthetical edifice of the JPC (it has still not been constituted).

Moreover while all the opposition speakers faithfully brought up the scam they were so halfhearted and mealy-mouth that they hardly made a dent in the government defenses. Even George Fernandes who can take partial credit for the fall of Harshad Mehta didn’t prove much of a Giant-Kistler this time.

Article extracted from this publication >> July 31, 1992