The special session of parliament has two crucial takeaways for the opposition: first, they must hereafter be alert to scrutinise every move by this government to ward off trickery and trappings. Concealing crucial facts and giving misleading assurances have become its standard operating practice.

Second, the session has also established that coordinated action by opposition parties could act as an effective bulwark against the deceit, stealth and oneupmanship by the big two. We are now told of the last minute moves by some ruling party leaders to use the north-south divide to wean away some north-based parties.  

As part of this, Amit Shah had made a last minute compromise plan but did not act on it as things failed to move as he desired. This was because the opposition had insisted on Shah’s written assurance for this. And for the first time since 2014, Modi suffered the humiliation of defeat of a bill in the House.

The opposition’s stand was that the women’s quota bill was a decoy to pass the delimitation laws to redraw India’s electoral map for 2029 Lok Sabha polls.

Incidentally, it was Modi’s former boss Atal Bihari Vajpayee who had first discerned dictatorial shades in him. While on a US visit, he had directed his junior minister Vijay Goyal to tell Modi to stop being so “brazen” on Gujarat riots. At least two of his senior ministers had since  csswome  on record to assert that Vajpayee had wanted to dismiss Narendra Modi as Gujarat chief Minister.  

According to Yashwant Sinha, L.K. Advani was the one who had stalled the move. 

Jaswant Singh, another senior minister,  revealed that Gujarat riots had so disturbed Vajpayee that he had “almost resigned”.  This was, apparently, to force Modi’s ouster. Vajpayee himself had told PTI that “if India is not secular, then India is not India”. He reminded Modi about his ‘Raj dharma’ as Gujarat chief minister and asked him to stand by this ideal.

Realpolitik. Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty

But Modi did not show any gratitude to Advani for saving him in 2002. On the contrary, 11 years later, he conspired to frustrate his former saviour’s plans to become party’s PM candidate in 2014.  Instead, he imposed himself as PM. Subsequently, all his senior leaders were sent to the ‘Margdarshak Mandal.’   

Beginning with Jawaharlal Nehru, India had built a set of healthy democratic traditions. Consultation with the........

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