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After another day of near washout of proceedings, Parliament is expected to return to normal functioning on Wednesday (December 3), with the Centre finally conceding the Opposition’s demand for a discussion on electoral reforms.

A thaw in the logjam that began with the commencement of the Winter Session on Monday (December 1) was in sight after the government agreed in a meeting with Opposition MPs on Tuesday (December 2) to allocate 10 hours, beginning 12 noon on December 9, for a discussion on electoral reforms, which would include issues connected with the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls currently underway across nine states and three Union Territories.

Talks on ‘Vande Mataram’, election reforms on Dec 8, 9

“During the All Party Meeting Chaired by Hon’ble Speaker Lok Sabha today, it has been decided to hold discussion in Lok Sabha on 150th Anniversary of National Song ‘Vande Mataram’ from 12 Noon on Monday 8th Dec and discussion on Election Reforms from 12 noon on Tuesday 9th Dec (sic),” Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju confirmed in a post on X.

Also read: Govt sets December 9-10 debate on electoral reforms amid SIR logjam

The Centre’s move to concede the Opposition’s demand came after Lok Sabha’s proceedings were washed out on the first two days of the Winter Session, while the Rajya Sabha saw raucous protests and walkouts by the MPs of the Opposition INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) bloc on both days.

On Monday, the Rajya Sabha had witnessed heated exchanges between the Treasury and Opposition sides over Rijiju’s refusal to commit to a date for the discussion on electoral reforms.

Trinamool MP slams government

Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien had pointedly told Rajya Sabha Chairman C P Radhakrishnan that the Opposition cannot accept an open-ended assurance from the Centre for a discussion because of a “trust deficit” that stemmed from the fact that the “government had allowed the entire Monsoon Session to be washed out but did not allow a discussion on SIR”.

Also read: SIR clash in Rajya Sabha as Chair rejects debate, Opposition walks out

On Tuesday too, INDIA bloc MPs in the Rajya Sabha protested over Rijiju’s repeated assertions that the Opposition must not seek a time-bound assurance from the Centre once he had informed both Houses that the government was prepared to discuss electoral reforms once the scheduled commemorative short-duration discussion on the 150th year of ‘Vande Mataram’ was over.

Sources said that Rijiju maintained the same position when Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla called the all-party meeting to break the logjam, but the Opposition chose to dig in its heels too. Finally, the Centre offered that the discussion on ‘Vande Mataram’ should be allowed to take place in the Lower House on December 8, and electoral reforms could be discussed the following day. The Opposition accepted.

Agreeing on a middle path

As reported by The Federal on December 1, the Opposition had already made a concession to the Centre at the customary all-party meeting steered by Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh a day before the start of the Winter Session by not pressing for a discussion exclusively on the SIR.

Also read: Winter session disrupted by anti-SIR protest, Lok Sabha adjourned for the day

The Centre had argued that it could not accept a discussion on SIR alone as it was an administrative exercise being conducted by the Election Commission (EC), which is an autonomous constitutional body, and the government can’t be expected to reply on behalf of the poll panel.

A middle path was then explored with the Opposition agreeing to Rijiju’s offer to “broaden the scope of the discussion to electoral reforms in general”, within which the Opposition would be at liberty to raise issues to the SIR.

The logjam in Parliament over the past two days, however, was because of the Centre’s refusal to commit to a date for the discussion despite Rijiju telling Opposition leaders at the Business Advisory Committee meetings of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on November 30 that he would revert to them the same night “by 9PM with a timeline”.

‘If the Centre had been honest…’

DMK MP Tiruchi Siva told The Federal that the disruption of Parliament proceedings on the first two days of the Winter Session “could have been avoided if the Centre had been honest in giving us a fixed date for the discussion at the outset… instead, they tried to manipulate public opinion by trying to suggest that Opposition did not want to pay tribute to ‘Vande Mataram’. We were always very clear that ‘Vande Mataram’ discussion is important and all of us will participate in it but we wanted SIR to be discussed with the urgency it demands because the exercise is already underway and there is a December 16 deadline for its preliminary completion (for publication of draft electoral rolls)”.

Focus back on SIR arguments

With an agreement finally reached between the Treasury and Opposition Benches on the date for discussion on electoral reforms, the focus is now expected to shift to how each side would present its arguments.

Also read: Walkouts, jibes, disruptions: Parliament’s Winter Session starts with a storm

Leaders from the Opposition’s INDIA bloc told The Federal that they would highlight the “mass deletions and mysterious additions” made to the electoral rolls in Bihar after the SIR exercise concluded in the eastern state, which elected the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition back to power on November 14 with an over two-thirds majority. The Opposition also wants to highlight the over 20 cases of BLOs (booth-level officers) committing suicide across the states where the SIR is currently underway, citing mental harassment and inability to cope with the increased work pressure.

Sources in the Congress said party MPs, including Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, will also reiterate the “vote chori” claims made by Rahul during his recent press conferences regarding constituencies in Maharashtra and Karnataka and the voter rolls of Haryana, which highlighted alleged large-scale rigging of the electoral apparatus for voter addition and deletion.

The Samajwadi Party is also preparing a dossier on alleged electoral malpractices and voter suppression across several constituencies in Uttar Pradesh and will also highlight documented instances from constituencies such as Rampur and Sambhal where legitimate voters, many from the Muslim community, were not allowed to cast their votes during polls or bypolls.

Also read: Parliament is not a warm-up arena for elections, say experts | Capital Beat

The Trinamool Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party, which have shared frosty terms with the Congress for months now, are also preparing to highlight specification instances on alleged voter addition, deletion and suppression in West Bengal and Delhi, while also stressing on an alleged “conspiracy between the EC and the BJP” to use the SIR for wide-scale manipulation of electoral rolls to tilt election results in favour of the saffron party. The Trinamool is also expected to take a strong position against “attempts to disenfranchise Muslims by branding them illegal Bangladeshis and Rohingyas”.

Bihar bolsters BJP’s SIR stance

Sources on the Treasury side, however, maintained that the BJP leadership is “not worried” about how the discussion would pan out. “The Opposition can say whatever it wants but people of the country have repeatedly given us the mandate. They (Opposition parties) made so many allegations during the Bihar SIR too but what happened? There was highest ever turnout, not a single person came out to say he was not allowed to vote because of SIR and NDA won a thumping majority. The Bihar result is the biggest validation of free and fair elections,” a Union minister from the state told The Federal.

Also read: ‘Biggest dramabaaz’: Opposition hit back at Modi after he accuses them of doing drama in Parliament

The BJP, sources said, is also expected to liken the Opposition’s ongoing anti-SIR protests to the Congress’s earlier allegations about the electronic voting machines being rigged to favour the saffron party. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had already set the tone for the rhetoric that the ruling side is likely to stick to whenever electoral reforms are discussed when he spoke to the media ahead of the start of the Winter Session on Monday and slammed the Opposition for its “drama”.

Modi expected to take on Opposition over ‘Vande Mataram’

The BJP also believes that by ensuring that the discussion on ‘Vande Mataram’ immediately precedes the one on electoral reforms, the party has already laid the groundwork for an offensive against the Opposition. Modi is expected to reply to the ‘Vande Mataram’ discussion, and his speech is expected to be high on the tropes of jingoistic nationalism and Hindutva pride while equally acerbic towards the Congress and other “secular” parties from the Opposition.

The discussion on electoral reforms, likewise, is expected to see the BJP dismissing any and all substantive issues of mysterious voter deletions and additions raised by the Opposition as “baseless claims” and “drama by bad losers”. The BJP, sources said, will also harp on former prime minister Indira Gandhi’s disqualification from Parliament following her conviction for electoral malpractice in 1975, which was the immediate precursor to her declaration of Emergency.