The Congress on Friday publicly declared that Parliament would not be allowed to function till home minister Amit Shah gave a statement in both Houses on the serious security breach that occurred on Wednesday.

Taking strong objection to the home minister’s decision to speak to a private TV channel on the incident when Parliament is in session, Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh said: “It is characteristic of his sheer arrogance that the home minister found time yesterday evening to talk to a TV channel but is refusing to make a statement in Parliament. Parliament didn’t function for two days because the members demanded a statement but the government is not concerned.”

Ramesh pointed to the duplicity of the government as the ministers and BJP leaders tried to create an impression that the incident was not serious even as the perpetrators were booked under the draconian UAPA.

He said: “INDIA parties have conveyed to the Lok Sabha Speaker and Rajya Sabha chairperson that running Parliament will be extremely difficult until the home minister makes a statement in both the Houses.”

Arguing that the government was accustomed to making statements in Parliament on sundry issues but was silent on the security breach of such magnitude, Ramesh said: “This is contempt of parliamentary tradition. Ministers always made statements on serious issues. We have no expectations from the Prime Minister but even the home minister has ignored the demands of Opposition parties. Instead, our MPs have been suspended. What’s their fault?”

Former minister P. Chidambaram, who has held portfolios like finance and home, wrote on X: “Politics under BJP has plunged to new depths. If the Opposition wants the Hon’ble PM or the Hon’ble HM to make a statement in Parliament on the terrible breach of security on 13th December, their members will be suspended. Suspension of MPs is no deterrent to those who breached security. It is intended to silence the Opposition.”

Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal hinted at the reasons for the Modi government’s reluctance to discuss this issue in Parliament. Venugopal said: “Parliament has been attacked two times and the BJP was in power both times. The BJP always talks about national security. People now know how the BJP is fooling them. People are distressed by unemployment and price rise. But the government is not doing anything about those issues; only bhasan (speeches) on national security and communalism.”

Venugopal confronted Shah on the charge that the Congress was politicising this issue, saying: “They built a new Parliament and claimed it is the most secure building. The incident happened on December 13, the anniversary of the previous Parliament attack. There was clear-cut information about a possible attack again. You can’t even speak loudly in the corridors. But when Women’s Reservation Bill was passed, BJP workers came inside and shouted slogans for Modi. Parliament has become a mockery now; they made it like that.”

While the latest intrusion was apparently planned and executed by frustrated youths aimed at bringing to national attention the scourge of unemployment, the 2001 terror attack could have wiped out the entire political leadership of the country had the security forces not battled and defeated the armed intruders. The BJP was in power on both occasions, a fact that punctures its boast of a robust approach to national security.

While the Pulwama attack in which 40 CRPF jawans died in 2019 also happened when Modi was the Prime Minister, another shocking incident when a passenger plane was hijacked to Kandahar in Afghanistan happened in 1999 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. The strategic acumen of the then government was questioned by experts because the plane hijacked from Kathmandu landed in Amritsar but managed to take off again.

The plane, with 176 passengers then went to Lahore and Dubai before landing in Kandahar while the Indian establishment watched helplessly. So helpless was the government that the then external affairs minister Jaswant Singh and national security adviser Ajit Doval were compelled to escort three dreaded terrorists to Afghanistan as a deal to free the passengers. Masood Azhar, who was freed at that time, later played havoc with India’s security.

The indisputable fact is that the BJP’s credentials on national security remained intact despite such scandalous failures but the Congress image got dented badly when Mohammad Ajmal Kasab infiltrated into Mumbai through the sea route. Aware of this lopsided discourse on national security, the Congress isn’t ready to allow any easy escape route to the Modi government on the latest failure, which showed the world how amateur boys were jumping on the benches in the Lok Sabha, demolishing the hollow bluster of fool-proof security in the Modi regime.