The country just witnessed yet another No Confidence Motion tabled and voted out in the Parliament. This was the 27th instance in the history of Independent India. Only once the government failed to prove its majority. The motion is generally used to express concerns that are unaddressed rather than topple the government. This time the motion was tabled by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) raising the issue of Special Category Status (SCS) to the state of Andhra Pradesh as the central theme. The Indian National Congress (INC) saw this opportunity to raise questions regarding wide range of issues apart from the SCS.
I was very excited to listen to the proceedings of the day. After all, No Confidence Motions don’t come that often. And when they come, they do with full force and bring a horizon of issues to be addressed. For the government, it was chance to showcase the progress made under their ruling. For a common man, it was a chance to listen to both sides of the argument and understand where we stand as a country and whether the government is performing to its best or not.
I will not get into the complete details of the discussion as it would be too long. I only wanted to present 3 main takeaways from the entire day that to me will make a difference to the future of this country.
Rahul Gandhi is learning from NaMo.
You ridicule him, mock at him, or do whatever. Rahul Gandhi is here to stay. He has never been a popular politician in this country, but he is showing up right when it matters. Five years ago, I wrote an article about Rahul and that he has the capability to become an adorable leader. Only after so many years, I am coming out again in his support. Already declared as the PM candidate for Congress, he seems to be well prepared to face all the battles leading up to the general elections in 2019.
The latest lesson that Rahul learned is about the nature of politics in this country. He seems to have understood what works and what doesn’t. And who better to learn from other than Mr. Modi himself? Over the last few years, we witnessed an era of NaMo in this country. His oratory skills and master tactics have won the hearts of majority in this country. Rahul Gandhi has always lagged behind, making mistakes in his speeches or many a times speaking up irrelevant topics in strange ways.
This particular speech of Rahul during the No Confidence Motion was full of rhetoric, emotional dialogue with the general public, harsh accusations against the BJP (not necessarily based on facts), and with an element of surprise (The Munna Bhai Hug). This used to be the typical of Narendra Modi’s speeches over the years. And now Rahul seems to have mastered this art. It would be really exciting to see how these two leaders battle it out along with their party cadre in the next one year leading up to the elections.
You can watch the entire speech here. You can scroll to the last one minute to watch the hug after the “aap sabko congress me badlunga” dialogue.
PS: I personally am not a big fan of such speeches. But as a matter of fact, the impact of such speeches on general public seems to fetch more votes than a pure work / fact oriented dialogue. A reform that needs to come in the mind-sets of people. Long wait.
Just another cover-up from NDA Government?
There were three important speeches that came from the BJP. One from Rakesh Singh (President of BJP Madhya Pradesh), second from the Home Minister, Rajnath Singh and the last one that went for eternity from our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi ji. While Rakesh Singh started off well talking about various schemes that came into force during the Modi regime, he quickly drifted to the topics of Madhya Pradesh and spoke about the growth of the state since the time BJP came into power. Frankly, it was an unwanted drift considering the BJP has been ruling the state since the last 15 years.
The next speech was by Rajnath Singh. I think I dozed off in between because he spoke too much about the history and mythology. Probably the most unwanted speech in the entire day. Couple of important points he mentioned were about zero terror attacks in the country since the last 4 years and he also promised to bring strict laws on mob lynching in the coming days. The most depressing part of the speech however was the line “People who carried out anti-Sikh riots are teaching lessons on mob lynching,” referring to the 1984 riots against Sikhs. Common BJP! How long would you continue the narrative of 1984 to defend what is wrong today? The problem of mob lynching is real and we need to act on it today!
And finally, very late in the night, our PM Modi gave an hour long (or even longer?) speech. This was a typical speech of Modi with taunts against the opposition, against Rahul Gandhi and a long list of development work that he and his party have taken up over the years. But in the end, if you look at his responses to the key questions asked by the opposition, they were all not very convincing. Whether about Rafale deal, or the SCS to state of Andhra Pradesh, his responses were simply blame games on the opposition.
Whether Modi and BJPs 4 years did good to the country or not is a longer debate. But for now, it looks like the government is slowly losing its grip on some crucial matters. At least the things that are visible to general public. However, I am very confident of the Modi-Shah combination to pull off some last-minute excellence to bring them back to power. Let’s wait and watch this out.
Watch out for Ram Naidu from TDP!
The last time I was Delhi, I took part in a Youth Parliament session organized by MyParliament. The objective of this event was to get an idea of how a real day in the Parliament runs. Although I had read and trained multiple people about this topic when I was an anchor at We, The People, this was the first time I was a part of the simulation. And if there was one thing that stuck to my mind about a Parliament, it is the sheer disadvantage an MP from any of the southern states get in the house due to their mother tongue.
The power of expression is often very important in the house discussions. Long remembered are the speeches that contain a lot of content but at the same time a lot of depth in expression using verses / idioms / multiple figures of speech. And all of this happens in Hindi which is the mother tongue for most people sitting in the House. They are used to the language and to delivering powerful speeches in this language for years. Compared to house members from the southern states who have a completely different language. I always felt that this hindered the ability of our MPs to convey their message in the most powerful way (mother tongue).
This is precisely the reason why I loved listening to Mr. Ram Naidu. He represents Andhra Pradesh in the Lok Sabha. One of the main speakers during the proceedings of No Confidence Motion. Ram Naidu tore apart the opposition with facts, figures and his narrative. And boy! he was so damn impressive in Hindi. Not his native language, but you can see that he has put in a lot of effort to get this done. It is not easy to master a language to an extent of delivering an effective speech. He is a leader to reckon for the future!