Book Review | A Parliamentarian’s Almanac Reveals the Government’s Warts
The government and media made the Opposition invisible. O’Brien draws back the curtain
It is indeed the case that after the defeat of All-India Trinamul Congress (AITMC) in this month’s state assembly elections — yes, with all the caveats about the lack of the Election Commission’s mandatory neutrality — the party’s leader in Rajya Sabha is on a relatively weaker ground. It will be sometime before the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) can gain the seats from the state in West Bengal. But the views and facts that O’Brien presents in this collection retain their crucial importance and relevance. As a matter of fact, the importance only increases because with each electoral success only increases the ruling party’s obfuscations about the state of affairs. Due to his years as communicator through his popular quiz programmes on Doordarshan, he understands the mechanisms of manipulation that the right-wing BJP indulges in constantly. The BJP is not just on a permanent election mode, it is also in a permanent propaganda mode. The factual and critical counterpoint that O’Brien delivers becomes vital.
He rightly notes the need for parliamentarians to become politician-journalists because traditional media — newspapers and television news channels not only neglect parliamentary proceedings and the debates that take place there, and how the government is challenged everyday on every issue — have hung their boxing gloves as it were, and what one gets is the government’s uncontested view. O’Brien literally provides the necessary other view.
The facts are rolled out; In the chapter, “Less Welfare, More PR”, it is shown that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) showed that in the Ayushman Bharat, the grand health insurance scheme, that 7.5 lakh beneficiaries were linked to a single cell number 9999999999, Rs 1.1 crore was disbursed to people “who were supposedly deceased”, and in 2.25 lakh cases, “the date of surgery was recorded after the date of discharge”. In the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao scheme, “Almost 80% of funds spent between 2016 and 2019 under this scheme were used solely for media campaigns and advocacy.”
At the end of the book, O’Brien has given excerpts from the speeches of Rahul Gandhi, leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Abhishek Banerjee, leader of Trinamul Congress in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Akhilesh Yadav, the Samajwadi Party leader in the Lok Sabha, and Surpriya Sule, the Nationalist Congress Party leader in the Lok Sabha. These speeches show the refutation of the government’s assertions and claims. Banerjee’s speech on the Budget is eloquent on facts: “A home-cooked vegetarian thali costs eight per cent more year on year in April 2024. The price of onions goes up by 43%... Household savings plummeted to a fifty year low in 2023, with household debt reaching a record high of 39.1% of GDP in 2024.” There cannot be a better riposte to the complaint, where is the Opposition? The government and media made the Opposition invisible. O’Brien draws back the curtain.
Politics, Policy and Predictions: Views from the Front Row of Parliament
By Derek O’Brien
HarperCollins
pp. 304; Rs 499