Telangana Congress Discovers Democracy Needs Fewer Questions
The government suspended the Opposition, then held a seminar on why the Opposition was not participating constructively.
The Congress government in Telangana has found the perfect solution to legislative accountability: remove the legislators accountable for asking questions, then complain that the House lacks constructive debate. On September 9, Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar suspended 22 BRS MLAs, including KT Rama Rao and T Harish Rao, for the remainder of the Monsoon Session after they entered the Well, raised slogans and disrupted proceedings. The immediate dispute involved allegations of police misconduct against women legislators, remarks concerning KCR and a turmeric-water “purification” ritual near KCR’s Erravelli farmhouse. There was disorder. There were also questions. Congress appears to have treated both as the same thing.
The government had a legitimate procedural argument: storming the Well is not a parliamentary research method. But the Congress response was not to establish the facts about the alleged police conduct. It was to suspend the people demanding that the facts be examined. Then ministers, having removed the Opposition from the room, kept discussing the ritual themselves. Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka called it an insult to Dalits. Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy alleged that KCR had plotted to disrupt the Assembly and ordered an investigation. The Opposition was absent, but its storyline remained fully employed.
This is the new Telangana model of democratic functioning: first invite questions, then classify inconvenient questions as disruption, then deliver a prolonged explanation of why the people asking them are anti-democratic. Revanth Reddy warned that the BRS’s “arrogant” conduct would see its “lives reduced to dust”. It is an impressive contribution to geology. Voters, meanwhile, may be waiting for guarantees, administrative delivery and institutions that do not confuse criticism with sabotage.
The BRS can be criticised for turning the Assembly into a slogan stage. Congress can be criticised for turning suspension into a substitute for answering. Both parties understand theatre. The ruling party, however, controls the lights, the microphone and the door.
The Telangana Assembly has 119 elected members. This week, democracy was improved by subtracting 22 of them.
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