I have never been a great believer that our Parliament does the job it is supposed to do - Debate and Legislate.
For far too long it has been held hostage by hooligans who stall its proceedings on some pretext or other, and by the Government, since they cannot stall directly by shouting slogans, creates a situation where the opposition will be forced to stall.
(This is like what is happening in Government colleges in Kerala, where there is a student strike (and at times strike by the teachers) every other day, disrupting classes. Everyone is happy bar the odd studious student, as they can go home early. The teacher loiter around for a couple of hours and then scoot off. I have seen with my own eyes, lecturers asking student leaders hopefully whether there will be a strike on the given day, as they have some urgent personal work to attend to. Why everyone is happy with a strike (even I was, in my college days) is because no earth shaking knowledge transfer happens in the class room and who wants to sit and listen to boring lectures by Manikkan, or Devaraj, or Sooryanarayanan, or Ajitha or Sarada or Sharma or Marikkar Kutty or Jayamani - some of the real specimen lecturers from my time, who were plain lousy as teachers)
But even by our Parliaments 'lofty' standards, the current impasse on it being stalled because a JPC is not formed to investigate the 2G Scam takes the cake. While the Scam is indeed the largest in our known history of serial scams, and the culprits need to be brought to book (not that they ever will be), whether a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) will ever be able to do that is a moot point, taking into account what previous JPCs have (not) accomplished. The option for the the opposition would have been to initiate a debate in the Parliament, where they could have put the Government to mat - that is the only thing they could have done. Having said that, the onus of making the Parliament function is with the Government. Why they are refusing a JPC is a mystery, knowing how much little it can achieve. And they have been very obstinate about stone walling a JPC Probe.
The real reason lies elsewhere. One needs to read this in association with appointing tainted Thomas as Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC), which has been an unmitigated disaster for the ruling front as the Supreme Court has been scathing in its comments on this ridiculous government decision of a person who not only has a criminal case against him, but also has blocked an enquiry by CAG into the 2G scam when he was Telecom Secretary. Talk about Conflict of Interest. So what is the real reason? Queen is involved in the 2G Scam. It is obvious that she is involved. She forced a reluctant MMS to re appoint Raja as Telecom minister, and to appoint Thomas as CVC, despite opposition leaders dissent note. The Congress will put up such a stone walling performance only if either the queen bee or the prince bee is involved. A scam of such magnitude could not have happened without their patronage. Congressmen are too wily to allow an ally to scoot off with that kind of money, without taking their huge pound of flesh. The queen must be protected at all times. For that if the country's parliament has to stop working, so be it. Who cares?
