There are glaring instances that the doctrine evolved by the bards of the PM that he should not be criticized and attacked, as he is the leader duly elected is itself the travesty of the Constitution. To the dismay of people, PM did not answer a single question during the question hour in both the Houses of Parliament in the past ten years showing how little the PM cared for the Constitution. PM would have the dubious distinction of the first leader in independent India who did not engage with questions in parliament. Question hour is seen as the soul and essence of parliamentary democracy, when the opposition can raise any question to the government. It is not an accident that PM has not addressed a single press conference since 2014 with the underlying theme that the leader is above all.

Detractors of PM have rightly cornered him, declaring that a third term for him would be an end of the Constitution. The problem is that detractors have not gauged the damage due to the PM so far and how much time and efforts would be needed to set things right. Without declaring the PM wanted to do away with the Constitution. PM in the last decade has acted in various ways to dilute the spirit of the sacred document that is central to governing the world’s largest democracy. For the PM, destroying the Constitution has been work in progress, and it would be journey downhill if five more years are added.
PM ensured that the outgoing Lok Sabha (House of the People) did not have a deputy speaker, an unprecedented act in the history of the country’s parliamentary democracy. As per parliamentary convention, the post of the deputy speaker is given to the opposition. So PM might have been forced to give the deputy speakership to the opposition, especially to the Congress, which got the highest number among the opposition parties. PM willfully ignored the essence of the Constitution during the last ten years, while running Parliament. He ignored the Constitution and the parliamentary scheme to refer bills to appropriate standing committee/joint committee/select committee for greater deliberations and scrutiny. Despite short cuts in the passage, some bills boomeranged on the government especially the PM.

The three black laws on agriculture, which gave a bloody nose to the government in the face of fierce protests by farmers, were passed in a jiffy amid opposition protests. Several bills were turned into laws by the government taking advantages of the ruckus in parliament. Some bills were passed after presiding officers had thrown out most of the opposition from both the Houses. Unlike no other PM, the current PM used the rules and regulations of parliament to throttle democracy on spacious charges that the non-BJP parties were showing disrespect to the chair. The presiding officers, by design, repeatedly eulogised the PM in a bid to taunt the opposition. PM, in a devious way, kept the position of presiding officers on tenterhook sending the signal that they behave or else. People already know how the last Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan, eight times Lok Sabha Member, was not renominated to contest the next General Elections. Sensing humiliation, she announced her retirement from politics.

Sumitra Mahajan’s successor Om Birla as speaker in the outgoing Lok Sabha always looked towards the treasury benches. When the Congress leader was repeatedly attacked in the Lok Sabha by BJP members including senior ministers for certain misconstrued remarks made during a U.K. visit some two years back, he met the speaker as part of natural justice, he needed to be given an opportunity to respond to the allegations. The speaker, Rahul Gandhi recalled, neither said yes or no. He just kept on smiling. What happened later came as a shock. Rahul Gandhi was disqualified from the House, using a conveniently timed conviction in a defamation case, the first instance of a prominent opposition leader being unprecedently proceeded against in such a way during the past 75 years.

Some years back PM ensured passage of a controversial bill, dubbing it as a money bill just to circumvent the Rajya Sabha (Council of States) where BJP did not have majority at that time. The Supreme Court of India (SCI) later ruled that it was not a money bill. It was the Aadhar bill, which the SCI later cleared. Justice D.Y.Chandrachud, in his dissenting judgment, had observed that it was a fraud on the Constitution. Interestingly, PM did not heed the constitution of the BJP as well. In 2019, PM appointed J.P.Nadda as the working president of the party in place of BJP President Amit Shah, who became Union Home Minister. There is no provision of a working president in the BJP constitution.

Parliamentary democracy runs through dialogue between the government and the opposition. Ironically, the case of the opposition has been that the PM never took any initiative furthering a dialogue, nor did he go out of the way to reach out to the opposition, in the process destroying the very process of consultation and consensus for a sound functional parliamentary democracy. The job of the opposition is to oppose, expose, and dispose. So it is but natural that the opposition would seek answers to burning questions/issues . But PM did not allow debate on any controversial issues, like Chinese incursion in Ladakh, the Galwan incidents, the Adani expose etc. Ironically, when it suited him, the PM projected India as the world’s largest democracy so that he could be seen as a leader of the largest democratic nation on earth. The G20 summit in New Delhi was a case in point.

Country’s democratic institutions and systems of checks and balances have been thoroughly eroded over the last decade, an independent media no longer exists, the character of our politicians has plumbed unimagined depths, and the fabric of society has been torn and shredded. If, in spite of the ongoing General Elections results or manipulated results, courtesy the partisan Election Commission of India, PM manages to retain power for the next five years, India will cease to exist as a genuine democracy.

The tragedy of India under PM is that he brought to parliament the worst democratic practices followed in Gujarat under him. The Gujarat model under him was to expel temporarily opposition from the Assembly and pass the legislative business in a hurry in their absence. The Gujarat model has hurt the Constitution bringing the opponents on the firing line irrespective of whether they are right or wrong. Opposition’s only fault was that they were not on the right side of the government. Dr. B.R.Ambedkar, Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution of India, had suggested that the Constitution was a foolproof document for India’s parliamentary democracy, but it would all depend upon the character and integrity of the people at the helm and how they go about the tasks. PM has ensured that the worst fears of the founding fathers of the Constitution came true!