There was little surprise when the deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha Harivansh rejected the no-confidence motion against his senior, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar. What was unusual was the highly partisan explanations and the confrontationist language of the deputy chairman’s order.
Instead of well-argued reasoning, the order is replete with political accusations such as the opposition’s “design to denigrate the nation’s constitutional institutions” and “malign the incumbent vice president”.
It describes the no-confidence motion as a “misadventure” and a “deliberate trivialising and demeaning” of the “largest democracy’s second highest constitutional position”.
Dhankhar has been a carefully designed political project. During his 28 months as Rajya Sabha chairman, he restricted debates and sought to give a new meaning to the content and character of deliberative democracy.
Take, for instance, the just concluded winter session. Of its 43 hours, 27 hours were taken by Bills and the debate over the constitution. Dhankhar dominated four hours or 30% of the remaining 15 hours, according to Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi knows he is the best suited person for mission-mode assignments. As West Bengal governor, he gave his best at a time when Amit Shah launched his operation to capture Mamata Banerjee’s bastion in 2021. Though Mamata trounced the BJP in the subsequent assembly elections, governor Dhankhar proved his worth.
From Raj Bhavan, he opened a front to torment the chief minister through all available means. He delayed assenting to Bills, summoned state officials at will and sought explanations and made damaging statements against the state government. This is what led Dhankhar into Lutyens Delhi’s charmed circle and made him the preferred choice for the vice president’s post in 2022.
Soon, the Kolkata Raj Bhavan became a role model for all other governors of opposition-ruled states. And thus Kerala’s Arif Mohammad Khan, Tamil Nadu’s R.N. Ravi, Karnataka’s Thaawar Chand Gehlot and Punjab’s Gulab Chand Kataria looked to Dhankhar for inspiration. They all eventually became the Union government’s stormtroopers.
Dhankhar can rightly take credit for politicising two constitutional institutions: the office of the governor and that of Rajya Sabha chairperson. He is the pioneer of legitimising gubernatorial activism and converting the Raj Bhavans of non-BJP states into political war rooms.
In the Rajya Sabha, he called members from the treasury benches one after another to speak while preventing the opposition, including opposition leader Mallikarjun Kharge and seniors like O’Brien, from speaking.
In July, Kharge had sought a clarification from the prime minister, who was speaking on the motion of thanks to the president. Dhankhar refused permission, which led to a walkout that he called an “insult” to the constitution.
This writer began covering the Rajya Sabha in 1978 when presiding officers were much more liberal and dignified. R. Venkataraman was a Congress working committee and parliamentary board member before he assumed charge as vice president. A stickler for rules, he never called ministers or members by name. “The minister must reply to the second point” or “the member must sit down”, he would say.
While Mohammad Hidayatullah was Rajya Sabha chairman, he once reminded the irrepressible Bhupesh Gupta that he had exceeded his time. Irritated, Gupta blurted out: “I can understand what prompts those living on Maulana Azad road. They dream of the towering domes and red stone halls on Raisina Hill.” The house had a hearty laugh. That was the kind of sporting relationship between the members and the chair.
As against this, the incumbent Rajya Sabha chairman, a product of post-2014 politics, is on mission mode.
Barely four months after assuming the constitutional position of vice president, he questioned the Supreme Court’s verdict on the National Judicial Appointments Commission. He said the people’s will was supreme, not the judiciary’s. Since then, he has not looked back.
While Kharge was speaking during the budget session in August, Dhankhar snapped: “I know you want to destabilise the entire nation … You are determined to have your way at the cost of the constitution … They don’t want to participate … They know how to create only chaos.”
Following this, the opposition staged a walkout shouting: “Dictatorship will not be accepted.” This was among the first instances of the opposition talking about initiating impeachment.
Right this month, when the opposition demanded a discussion on the farmers’ demand for minimum support prices under rule 267, Dhankhar rejected it and snapped: “Interests of the farmers is not served by sloganeering or crocodile tears. Maintain decorum. You are only politicising it. You don’t want a solution. Farmers are your last priority.” The angry opposition walked out.
Again, the opposition walked out when the chair refused them permission to seek clarification from external affairs minister Jaishankar on his statement on the recent agreement with China. What was denied to them was a legitimate right that is available to members of parliament.
Before the opposition had staged its walkout during the budget session as mentioned above, Dhankhar had vented his ire on cine star Jaya Bachchan, who had objected to the tone in which he addressed her colleagues in the house.
“Enough of it … you may be anybody, a celebrity. You have to understand decorum,” Dhankhar told Bachchan.
He refused to allow Bachchan or any other opposition member to speak. When Trinamool Congress MP Sushmita Dev objected to his remarks on Bachchan, Dhankhar shot back saying “a senior member has no licence to run down the reputation of the chair”.
On August 8, Dhankhar refused discussion even on a non-controversial issue like the disqualification of wrestler Vinesh Phogat at the Olympics. When the opposition again staged a walkout, Dhankhar changed his strategy. He himself abruptly left the house, accusing the opposition of unruly conduct and repeatedly challenging the chair.
Perhaps the immediate provocation was Trinamool MP O’Brien’s remarks against the partisan behaviour of the chair. A visibly upset Dhankhar left in a huff. He shouted at the top of the voice and saying: “I am being insulted everyday in the house”.
Dhankhar got it back in the same coin when a video clip by a Lok Sabha members Kalyan Banerjee mimicking him began circulating late last year. It was shot outside the parliament building and was widely circulated on TV screens.
“The dignity of this post has fallen. The farmer community has been insulted. My community has been disrespected,” he said in the Rajya Sabha. He said it was a Congress conspiracy to defame him though Banerjee is a TMC member and not of the Congress.
Opposition leaders cite many such misdemeanours by Dhankhar after he took charge as Rajya Sabha chairman. The decision to go in for a no-confidence motion was unprecedented. Under the constitution, this is the only tool available to them to air their ire at the decline of democratic standards.
The impeachment motion did not arise suddenly. It has been the outcome of two years of pent-up anger against what opposition leaders call the chairman’s dictatorial behaviour. During the last budget session there were discussions among the opposition leaders about the legal aspects of the impeachment procedure.
During these consultations, opposition members specially mentioned the way the chair reduced the time the time allotted to them during debates. Another grievance was the arbitrary switching off of mics to prevent them from being heard.
The chairman frequently made personal remarks against the members which they said were a violation of parliamentary norms.
The impeachment move did not materialise in August 2024 because it came at the fag end of the session and they had little time for working out details.
What particularly hurt the opposition is the new practice of mass expunction of any criticism of the prime minister’s disparaging remarks against them or wrong facts he presents in his speeches. This had happened in the last session when Kharge’s remarks on Modi were removed from the records. Another practice that hurt the opposition was Dhankhar’s insistence on the authentication of every comment targeting the prime minister.
Under the parliamentary rules and present political power matrix, the opposition has little chance of winning an impeachment motion against the chairman of the Rajya Sabha. The ruling alliance has a brute numerical majority in both houses. However, it can serve as another token protest.
P. Raman is a veteran journalist.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
