Parliaments and assemblies lie at the heart of representative democracies as forums for debate, dissent and questions. The actions and failures of the government are subjected to rigorous review in these houses of people's representatives. However, now one is prompted to ask whether there is more censorship than discussion going on in India's parliament. It is customary in the house to use debate on the motion of thanks to the President's speech as an opportunity to critique the government's policy stances. It is also an opportunity for the opposition. However, Speaker Om Birla announced that some parts of Rahul Gandhi's speech in the Lok Sabha would be expunged from records. Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankar also scissored out parts of Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge's speech in the upper house. While deleting unparliamentary or impolite language is understandable, when criticism of the government and utterances pointing out the government's failings are also expunged from the record, the voice of the people in the people's assembly gets blacked out. In the 18 parts removed from Rahul's speech, the Prime Minister was criticized and some questions were raised. If the Prime Minister should not be criticized even in the Parliament, then where does democracy exist? Rahul said that people are wondering about the extraordinary rise of Adani Group during the term of the current regime and they are curious about Adani's relationship with Modi at Mumbai Airport and referred to allegations of interference in transfer of the airport from GVK group to Adani group. Such references were declared to be prohibited. Some parts of Kharge's speech in the Rajya Sabha were cut out.
When there is disagreement and accusations are raised by the opposition, removing it from the record would make a mockery of parliament. The ruling party can well use its opportunity to reply. But in both the Houses, the Prime Minister was not ready to clear doubts, but only to berate the opposition. Despite speaking for over three hours between the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, the Prime Minister did not even pretend to have heard the word Adani or the allegations that are still ringing loud across the country. Instead of giving the explanation which the people wanted to hear, he attacked the opposition and made Parliament a platform for election campaign. Calling all the accusations and suspicions as total lies, he escaped without answering. The prime minister also kept mum on the demand for a probe by a Joint Parliamentary Committee or a Supreme Court-supervised panel into the allegations heard globally against Adani. If he took this as a political issue, that would hardly be the right approach. The Hindenburg report has called for an investigation into corruption in the stock and accounts of a commercial group directly related to the nation's security and infrastructure. That is the national interest. In some other democratic countries, the Speaker of the House takes care to make the prime minister answer on such important issues. However, what we see here is making way for the government to get away without saying anything. The chairpersons of the house should understand that the chair has no obligation to protect the interest of the ruling party.
One of the reasons stated for expunging parts of Rahul's speech is that he made allegations without proof or prior notice. He raised doubts, not accusations. If they are hollow, the government should have been able to explain. In fact, there were allegations against Adani in Australia. Adani Group started exporting coal from Australia in December 2021 ignoring public outcry. The following May, India waived import duties on coal. The government directed Coal India to import about 1.25 crore ton of coal to India by December. As early as 2015, it was alleged with evidence that allotment of thermal power plant was sanctioned in Jharkhand for Adani Group (for the requirement of Bangladesh) tweaking rules and policy. Prasanna Kalu Tharage, labour leader in Sri Lanka, had publicly alleged that Narendra Modi had exerted pressure for awarding the Colombo port terminal to the Adani Group. Another leader, Palitha Athukorala also confirmed the same which was also repeated in 2022 by official Ferdinando. Similar allegations have also been raised in the matter of Mumbai airport, Mundra port etc. A few facts were also brought up in support of all of them. Adani's excessive influence in governance is a persistent complaint in the public domain. Now when Hindenburg released a factual report that corruption and fraud are being practised by the group in a manner that would affect national security, what the opposition did was to raise the previous and new suspicions for the government's explanation and investigation. This is not only a right but also the responsibility of the opposition. If none of that can be mentioned in parliament,of what use is Parliament to the people?