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Good times never prove lasting, particularly in politics. This reality must have by now dawned on the Modi government and the BJP leadership. Narendra Modi rode to power in May 2014 securing massive popular support. It usually takes time for new governments to lose their honeymoon period. With the passage of time, their failure to fulfill their populist election promises also starts generating anti-incumbency sentiment which climaxes as the next elections near.

The Congress’s emulation of the BJP’s earlier habit of disrupting parliament not only shows a lack of imagination, but is also politically damaging since it exposes the party’s mulishness, especially when it stalls measures like the one on goods and services which it earlier supported.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The efforts of a buoyant Kerala unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to forge a third front in the bipolar state, in the wake of its impressive performance in the Aruvikkara by-election, seem to have hit solid hurdles.

When the BJP was in opposition, it insisted that a union minister or a chief minister, involved in a scam, should first resign before the party would agree to have a debate in Parliament or a state assembly. When the then Railway Minister Pawan Bansal was found involved in an alleged racket, the BJP, as the main opposition, disrupted Parliament day after day, demanding “first resignation and then debate”. It adopted the same approach when the former Law Minister Ashwani Kumar tried to influence the CBI in a case. Ultimately, both the ministers had to quit and faced the inquiry and Parliament was allowed to function.

LUCKNOW: Governor Ram Naik has expressed concern over the deterioration in education and standard and adverse impact of large scale copying in Uttar Pradesh.

BHOPAL: The Vyapam scam has consumed yet another session of the Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha. The monsoon session of the House, which commenced on July 20, was to have ten sittings and last till July 31. However, it was adjourned sine die only after three sittings on July 22.

The recent orders of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) debarring media persons from interacting with senior officials in their respective office rooms and relying on the official briefings in a designated press room is tantamount to restricting unhindered flow of information from the one and only residuary Ministry to the media. This is also gagging the press, which does not fit in the scheme of the Constitution of India in our rule of the law based system of democratic governance, where people are the sovereign masters of the Government of the day and media the watchdog of their (public) interests. It also militates against the freedom of press as postulated by the Constitution.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal knows how to manipulate public opinion, a ‘quality’ that every politician must have. Even if his comments are often enough below the belt he knows how the same will enthuse his support base. He has only one match in contemporary Indian politics – West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. But Mamata is a matured politician now. After spending nearly five years at the helm of the state she has become circumspect and does not rush to make a comment as she used to in the initial years of her tenure. The other difference between the two is that Mamata heads a large state not a Union territory glorified as a state. Thus Kejriwal’s concern to stir the debate or whatever one calls the evening news channel rituals is more intense than Mamata’s.

During the UPA-2 regime, there were jokes going around that the day’s Parliament session lasted as long as one needs to cook a two-minute “Maggie noodles”. Now that the Maggie noodles are in soup, one has to look for some other example. Unfortunately, most political parties have been adopting disruptive politics in the conduct of Parliament to gain public attention. The Congress is now following the practice of what the BJP did in the last ten years without realising the harm it is doing to the parliamentary practice. As President Pranab Mukherjee said while addressing Parliament some time ago: “Parliament functions through debate and not disruption”. The sooner the political parties realise this the better.

Manipur, especially the Imphal valley, is in the throes of an extraordinary mass movement around the Inner Line permit (ILP) issue, in the face of relentless curfews. Protesters have been killed and wounded by Khakis. That we do not hear more about it is because there is no senile “Gandhian” or Gurgaon candleholder or tricolour self-righteousness involved.