This week the elected representatives will troop into Parliament to represent the electors. Ostensibly! Frequently, time set aside to ponder over public cause is hijacked by puerile puffery. If the past is to be treated as the prologue, the four-week Monsoon Session will witness high political drama and the amplification of allegations and counter-allegations ricocheting off the walls of the 1927 edifice.
The pall of grief and gloom unleashed by the pandemic, with millions pushed over the edge of penury, signals the need to put public purpose above partisan politics. The expectation though wholly legitimate may be a tall ask given the reign of rhetoric. Hopefully, the elected will find the occasion, between bouts of hyperbole and halla bol, to seek answers to questions of those struggling to preserve lives and livelihoods.
The national capital is abuzz. The nine-letter verb, a palpable presence in casual and formal settings, has triggered a commotion of speculation and punditry, a kind of political kerfuffle if you please. The question ‘what are you hearing on the reshuffle’ is aired even though those who ask know that nobody quite knows.
The defining characteristic of the Modi Model of politics is the element of surprise, predictable unpredictability! Indeed, public appraisals of ministerial performance within the party and private communions of hopefuls are enveloped by caveats of if and when. The use of the adjective ‘impending’ and the event itself hang between probability and political possibility.