“There isn’t much else for the Opposition to do”

Abheek Barman writes:

• ….this autumn with one subject: corruption. This avalanche of moral outrage began in the drawing rooms and cocktail lounges of Delhi around July or August with well-heeled folks shaking their heads and muttering their doubts whether the city would be ready for the Commonwealth Games .

• It took little time for tales of delay and ineptitude to snowball into charges of graft. Then the focus shifted to Mumbai’s Adarsh Society , built for war widows, gifted to military and political bigwigs. One chief minister and one sitting MP were gone by the time Barack Obama’s aircraft took off from Delhi. But the biggest charges of graft have been levelled at former telecom minister Andimuthu Raja , who’s being accused of having caused losses of up to . 1.7 lakh crore to the exchequer. Raja too has left government.

• Most Indians, from the humble truck driver buying his way through toll gates to the homemaker who has to bribe the agency to supply cooking gas, live with graft every day. So why are we suddenly convulsed by sleaze in government? The answer, most probably, is because there isn’t much else for the Opposition to do. The scandals were headlined before and during this session of Parliament and an Opposition bereft of issues or ideas to debate, seized it gratefully with both hands to block both Houses.