DC Edit | No end in sight to logjam on Manipur in Parliament

Logjams, slogan shouting, placards and posters, protests and pandemonium marked another day in Parliament on Monday, with no sight of a resolution yet, with both the government and the Opposition, either unwilling, or failing, to resolve the impasse. The entire Opposition spectrum, led by the newly formed INDIA coalition, wants the Prime Minister to address the Parliament over the issue, whereas the BJP-led NDA coalition insists that the rightful custodian to respond on the issue is the Union home minister. The united Opposition coalition, INDIA, sees no reason to withhold or withdraw its frontal attack on the ruling NDA, having already tasted some success in almost forcing the hand of the BJP-led government, and ahead of the start of the Monsoon Session, managing to elicit a public statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On its part, the BJP is seemingly stuck in its position that a statement by home minister Amit Shah is acknowledgment enough of the seriousness of the issue, the conceding by the government of a failure of its law and order mechanism in the state, and is trying to build bridges, pressing into service minister Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari to reach out to the Opposition. Mr Shah, on his part, called it ‘a sensitive matter’, about which the country “deserves to know the truth.” It would be foolhardy for anyone to expect that the phrase, “no one should politicise the issue” will hold any water — in fact, in an election year, the Opposition is bound to use this as a unifying and emotive issue to bring limelight on to a larger theme that the Modi government has failed on several fronts and issues.