Why the suspension of 25 Lok Sabha MPs may be a boon for Congress

NEW DELHI: The Congress leadership has a few reasons to conclude that the suspension of 25 of its Lok Sabha MPs is a boon, which prompted it to spurn efforts to revoke the suspension. The party feels the suspensions have tactically helped the party to project itself as the ‘most aggressive and unrelenting’ Opposition party despite being reduced to its lowest figure in the Lok Sabha.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi, vice-president Rahul Gandhi and former PM Manmohan Singh personally leading the dharna daily is aimed at projecting Congress as a victim and the Modi government as anti-democratic. Strategists, who were once members of the Sanjay Gandhi brigade, have borrowed a page from Indira Gandhi’s book of realpolitik. It was the Janata Party regime’s decision to expel Indira Gandhi from the Lok Sabha, after her Chikmagalur bypoll win, that gave the party a grand opening to hit the streets with an emotional plank, recalled a senior Congress leader. With the Gandhis personally leading the ‘fight-back’ against the suspension of MPs, the Congress brass aims to enthuse its foot soldiers to hit the streets soon.

The party will also blame the government for the Parliament logjam, although it was the Speaker’s decision to suspend MPs, by accusing the NDA of being agent provocateur who complicated its own legislative agenda in the monsoon session. By terming the suspension as ‘throwing out Opposition from Parliament’, the Congress has managed to rally large sections of Opposition parties at a time when the government was working to isolate it on the LaMo-Vyapam issues.

These strategic calculations will see Congress resuming its agitations in the Lok Sabha, when the suspended MPs return to the House.