Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday told his party MPs to “change yourself or there will be changes”, seeking to sound a stern warning for those irregular in attending Parliament proceedings.
“It doesn’t look nice to talk to MPs as if they are kids. Even children don’t like being chided repeatedly,” Modi was quoted as having told BJP parliamentarians in a closed-door meeting.
Modi himself is often accused by the Opposition of rarely attending House proceedings. Modi was not present in the Lok Sabha when the contentious farm laws were repealed last week.
The BJP parliamentary party meets every Tuesday when Parliament is in session.
Modi didn’t clarify what kind of “changes” he was hinting at, but MPs present at the meeting felt those who do not attend Parliament sessions regularly would not be given tickets to contest elections.
Modi’s warning came after parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi, speaking during the meeting, flagged low attendance in the House and said many times MPs had to be called for lack of quorum.
On several occasions in the past, Modi had urged his party MPs to take Parliament proceedings seriously and be present in the House but the message seemed to have gone unheeded.
During the ongoing winter session itself, the Congress’s House leader in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Chowdhury, has on two occasions drawn attention to low attendance in the Treasury benches and remarked that the government was not taking Parliament seriously.
In BJP circles, the warning was seen as a sign of the Prime Minister seeking to tell party MPs to pull up their socks in view of the Opposition mounting pressure and the government no longer looking invincible. The capitulation on the farm laws, many in the BJP feel, has emboldened the party’s rivals and dealt a blow to Modi’s strongman image.
“Modi and the current BJP’s biggest strength is aggressiveness. We seem to be losing that,” a BJP MP said and felt the Modi was trying to tell them not to take the party’s dominance for granted.
In the winter session, unlike during the monsoon session, the Opposition has chosen to participate in House proceedings and corner the government, rather than resorting to stalling. In such a situation, BJP leaders said, they need to attend Parliament in full strength to counter the Opposition.
The Opposition’s protest over the suspension of 12 MPs from the Rajya Sabha was also discussed at the meet. Parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi later told reporters that the suspensions can be revoked if the MPs apologise.
The suspended MPs have been holding a daily dharna in front of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in Parliament complex and this is being seen as another effort by the Opposition to paint the government dictatorial. “The party needs to counter this effort with full strength,” one MP said.