In his first press conference after his re-election as the Prime
Minister on board Air India One, Manmohan Singh
revealed that "when he (L K Advani) rang up on May 16 to
congratulate on the election results, he expressed regret. I
also conveyed my apologies if I had hurt him." He also said that
he is now looking forward to `close' relations with Advani as
the Leader of Opposition.
This is certainly a sea change in Indian political
arena—it brings the much-needed freshness in the conduct of national
political parties. Both the leaders must be congratulated for
their maturity in ushering in a new trend in Indian politics—a trend
of candid admission of transgression from the acceptable levels
of civil behavior committed by the prime ministerial
candidates during electioneering, which, of course, might have been a
requirement of the campaigning for winning the elections. It is a
good beginning. And, it should not end with it. It will augur well for
the nation, if only both of them carry forward
this new-found culture to address the challenges that the nation is today seized with.
To better appreciate the significance of this change in the disposition of leaders
representing the treasury and opposition in the new Parliament towards each other, let
us take a peep into our political history. It has become a custom, perhaps, more by way
of habit, for an opposition leader and his party in the Parliament to oppose each and
every proposition made by the ruling party in its attempt to address a national challenge,
irrespective of its merit or otherwise. Such behavior of the
opposition parties in and out of the Parliament appeared
as though mandatory. No matter, even if they were to
introduce such a bill in the Parliament had they been sitting in the
treasury benches, oppose they must, and that is what we
have been by and large witnessing in our Parliament, ever since
we had one of our own.
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