Trinamool Will Skip Budget On Feb 1, Here's Why

Parliament begins its Budget Session earlier than usual this year, on January 31, 2017. A day previously, on January 30, the all-party ritual will take place in Parliament House. This is meant to be a meeting of all parties to discuss the upcoming session and its broad agenda, but becomes an occasion for the government - and sometimes not just the government - to mouth meaningless platitudes.

Towards the end of the meeting, the Prime Minister makes his customary five-minute photo appearance and everybody smiles for the cameras before dispersing. The platitude meeting is over. Tomorrow , this routine will be followed, but rather than waste time in Delhi, the Trinamool Congress will be doing something more substantive. Our chairperson, Mamata Banerjee, has called an internal meeting in Kolkata, beginning at 12.30 pm. This coincides with the all-party ritual, and we will choose to skip the latter. Instead we will do an internal stock-taking of the national economic and political situation.

February 1 is Budget Day. From the end of February, the budget has been brought forward to the first day of the month. The BJP government has done this, we suspect, to influence voters in Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur and Uttar Pradesh. This set of state elections begins on February 4. Our requests and objections relating to the date of the budget being unfair and undemocratic were not heeded by a government that has no time for niceties. Neither was our urge to be culturally sensitive on the occasion of Saraswati Puja, which also falls on February 1, considered.

As everybody knows, Saraswati Puja is more than just a religious event in Bengal. It is a tribute to learning and education, a cause that is so dear to this state and its people. As a Catholic boy going to a Jesuit school, I was acutely aware of Saraswati Puja and its significance. It was a holiday in school, a day for prayer - if you so chose - or just for quiet contemplation. It was a day when you did not touch pen or paper. To have the budget presentation coincide with Saraswati Puja is to disregard Bengal. If cherished occasions in other states can be incorporated in union government schedules, why not a much-loved Bengal tradition?

Many of my party colleagues in parliament are plain uncomfortable with leaving their homes on February 1 and not spending Saraswati Puja with their families, children and grandchildren. As a result, Trinamool Congress will in all probability be missing from parliament when the Finance Minister gets up to read his speech and make his proposals.

Of course, those proposals have started coming even earlier. The Prime Minister gave a mini-budget speech on December 31 itself. Now the BJP's manifesto and election speeches in Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere are making fairly ambitious promises. Is this contravening the spirit of the Model Code of Conduct? Has the Election Commission vetted the BJP's pre-poll promises and election manifesto? Is the ruling party in New Delhi giving itself an unfair advantage in state elections by misusing its privileges in government? To the Trinamool Congress, the answer is obvious. And all this adds to our anxiety and discomfort with the February 1 date for the budget. Just to win an election or gain a temporary advantage in a few seats, does the BJP have to trample upon so many constitutional nuances and established pillars of public and political conduct?

The Budget Session of parliament is normally a long and productive session, where many bills are passed. The thrust of its proceedings, however, relates to discussing and debating the budget, and analysing and arguing out the state of the economy. This year, the ghost of demonetisation - the blunder of November 8 - is haunting the economy. It has killed about 150 people directly and caused misery to millions of poor and struggling families. The entire budgetary exercise, Trinamool believes, will be an attempt to whitewash the damage done by demonetisation and pretend the economy is not sinking.

The opposition will not allow this to happen. Every  budget proposal and provision, every announcement, every claim, will be tested against the touchstone of demonetisation. After the fiasco of the exercise - with no black money being found and all the cash returning to the banks - the government is trying to obscure and evade hard questions about demonetisation. In the days following February 1, Trinamool Congress will ask those questions. The government cannot get away.

Derek O'Brien is leader, parliamentary party Trinamool Congress (RS), and Chief National spokesperson of the party.

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