UNION Finance Minister Mrs. Nirmala
Sitharaman has asserted that the Opposition’s
accusation is totally false that some States have
been denied justice in budgetary allocation.
Figures prove otherwise, Mrs. Sitharaman said
in her reply to the discussion on Budget 2024-25 in Lok
Sabha, while asking the Opposition to stop spreading narratives based on falsehood. Several leaders of the ruling
National Democratic Alliance (NDA) have made similar
appeals to the Opposition in the past several months -- even
through the election campaign. This is a fully justified expectation from a responsible Opposition in a democratic system. For, if the Opposition is using planned falsehood on
which to base its anti-Government narrative, then the sufferer in the long run is the people and democracy.
The outcome of the Lok Sabha elections have proved that
falsehood did not help the Opposition to post a victory on
the wall. No matter what kind of falsehood it resorted to,
the Opposition could not budge the NDA Government from
power and Mr. Narendra Modi returned for a historic, consecutive third term, the only Prime Minister to do that after
Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru.
The lies such as the NDA’s plan to
alter the Constitution or withdraw social benefits of affirmative action to Muslims did not make much difference to
the overall outcome of the Lok Sabha elections. Some figures did change, all right, here and there. Despite those, Mr.
Modi managed to return to power with an authentic majority. True, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could not win a
majority on its own. Yet, the NDA that has had a pre-election agreement proved its clear majority in the Lok Sabha
-- in the process proving that all Opposition narrative based
on falsehood did not have a popular acceptance.
It is obvious from this experience that utter falsehood will
never help any political party to win. Unfortunately, the
political masterminds of the combined Opposition did not
realise the hidden danger of continued rejection by people
in its narrative based on falsehood. Its election managers
did not realise that nobody can fool all the people for all the
time.
Yet, the Opposition appears to be happy with its limited gains in the electoral battle in the past some time. In
other words, the Opposition is not likely to learn the right
lesson from the 2024 election experience. During the Budget session of Parliament, the Opposition
continued its politics of false narrative -- and got severely
rebuffed by countless numbers of ruling party Members of
Parliament as well as Ministers etc. Even the presiding officers in both the Houses warned the Opposition Members
from indulging in lie-telling and deliberately negative propaganda about issues that did not exist in the first place --
like the accusation that many States have been deprived of
appropriate budgetary allocations.
It was obvious from the Opposition’s approach that it had
really not studied the Budget 2024-25 but indulged only in
superficial accusations that did not stand the scrutiny on
the basis of truth. Many of its accusations were figments of
imagination and did not stick in any manner.
The Opposition
possibly hoped to continue to bother the Government with
the help of falsehood. But that did not help in any manner
whatsoever -- and the Opposition got rebuffed almost at
every step during the ongoing session of Parliament.
No matter all those setbacks, the Opposition is less likely to learn right lessons beyond politics. It appears slated
to keep indulging in falsehood. Its masterminds will not
realise that in the long run, such an approach will not help
its cause. But then, with jaundiced eyes, the Opposition
cannot be expected to see the right thing in a right manner.