How about a privilege motion against incompetent diplomacy?
Continuing on the theme of my last post.
Today I heard that Arun Shourie is going to file a privilege motion against the PM Dr Manmohan Singh for misleading parliament on the nuclear issue. More specifically for claiming in parliament that India can conduct nuclear testing if it wants, and that the 123 Nuclear agreement is silent on the topic. (This was promptly denied by US in a statement which was tantamount to a nuclear test under the Indian government’s collective arse.)
I don’t know if a statement from US is enough to file a privilege motion against the PM. (A PM against a PM? Heh heh.) I mean, who has more credibility, eh? The Indian PM or some US undersecretary?
Even more important point. How about a privilege motion against the government’s inability to pull this thing off? I mean what kind of diplomacy was going on for the last two years, if immediately after the 123 thingummy was signed, everyone starts offering a rainbow of interpretations? File a motion against the government’s inability to read English, I say.
Ah, and the man who is filing the PM (Privilege motion). Arun Shourie. How I adore him. During the days of Rajiv Gandhi, he was the superhero editor of Indian Express who was exposing Rajiv in the newspaper every day. How I gulped it all down. Bofors and scam and Ram Jethmalani’s questions to Rajiv. And how Shourie built up V P Singh. And demolished Devi Lal. All lasted till Mandal. And the moment BJP was against VP, so was Shourie. VP the Saint became VP the devil incarnate. Moment of truth for a lot of us. How we were fooled by Shourie into supporting VP as long as it was convenient for BJP. The turnaround in the paper was faster than a F1 pitstop.
Not that it was relevant to this post. But I had to say it. The man Arun Shourie had a major hand in turning a lot of us journalism students cynical.
Back to the PM (the prime minister). Can you file a PM against him if he never made a statement in parliament? I mean, no statement was made that was humanly recognisable as a statement. I saw lots of people standing up and shouting. Maybe the PM tabled the statement.
I think Arun Shourie and BJP first should invite the PM back so he can really make the statement, and then file a privilege motion against him. Or even better, Shourie also should just table a privilege motion, the voting also should not be humanly recognisable, as the slogan shouting crowd keeps up its volume all through the process. After all who wants to hear anything, right?