We’re not disrupting Parliament. PM, Shah are running away from questions: Derek O'Brien

'We want the Prime Minister and the Home Minister to come to Parliament and answer questions'

Parliament is witnessing protests by the Opposition over a variety of issues, including Pegasus snooping, farmers' protest, price rise and fuel price hike among others. Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha floor leader Derek O'Brien explains to DH's Shemin Joy on why his party and other Opposition parties are up in arms against the Narendra Modi government.

The Monsoon Session of Parliament is on but no substantial business has been done so far. We witnessed disruption, which has been criticised by a section. How do you respond to this?

It's not the Opposition but the government which is disrupting Parliament. The government does not want Parliament to run. The Opposition's role is to hold the government accountable. So, we want to hold the government accountable on many issues. First, they should repeal the farm laws. We have a draft ready, we can give it to them and they can repeal the farm laws. That will take them precisely one day. Two, I will prove to you how the government does not want the Parliament to run. The Opposition is demanding a discussion on Pegasus. The government fielded the Information and Technology Minister to table a statement.

This is not enough. One, you have used espionage warfare against your own citizens. Two, you have used military spyware against the media, against your own cabinet, against your opponents, against the judiciary and Monday morning I learned that it also includes Army officials. You are setting up a surveillance state. This is an irrefutable crime. We want the Prime Minister and the Home Minister to come to Parliament and answer these questions. They are running away. So, they are disrupting, not us.

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Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu has said that around 90 MPs had given notices to raise important issues but could not do it due to disruptions. What is your take on that?

With due respect to the Chairman and the government, I am going to give you revealing statistics. There is a Parliamentary tool. In Lok Sabha, it is called adjournment motion and in Rajya Sabha, it is Rule 267 for suspension of business to discuss issues that need to be discussed immediately. Is it a mere coincidence that from 2016, there has never been one discussion under this Rule? The migrant workers’ plight was not an important issue to discuss? Demonetisation disaster was not an important issue to discuss under Rule 267? Now, you tell me where we use spyware is not an issue to discuss? So, Modi and Shah don’t understand Parliament. One late Minister would counsel them and guide them. Unfortunately, he has passed away. They are clueless about Parliament and the one or two senior MPs who may have an idea about how Parliament runs and the conventions, they have also been dropped.

So, the entire opposition together is humbly offering our tutorial services to Modi-ji and Amit Shah-ji. Because we are offering them tutorial services, take this as a social responsibility, they should come. You have to ask these questions to the BJP. Number one, why only 11% of your bills scrutinized by the Parliamentary Standing Committees, the lowest since Independence? Number two, ask BJP, where is the Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha? It has been two years! Number three, how many questions has the Prime Minister answered in Parliament? I will give you the number -- zero.

Number four, except for one hour on Thursday when the Prime Minister comes and sits there in Rajya Sabha for question hour, and when he comes to deliver 'Mann ki Baat' to make a speech, what is his participation in Parliament? Next, there is a fabulous convention of ten MPs who were sent every year to the United Nations, from different political parties. This was happening from the 1960s. This also has been stopped. For the 10 MPs, it is not a holiday. It was an engagement at an international level, BJP has stopped that. Why? Because they want to track everything you do.

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In the Pegasus issue, we have seen the names of Opposition leaders, activists, journalists etc surfacing. How are you going to raise it in Parliament?

What makes you think they (government) will want a discussion on Pegasus? We had asked for voting on farm bills. All of you saw what happened. They did not allow us the right, they took away the right to vote. Then they threw us out. Now, what are they saying on farm laws? They are now saying they have put a pause on the farm laws. This is not how Parliament works. This may be the 'Gujarat model'. It is the same thing with spyware. Actually, through your interview, I want to appeal to the senior members of the BJP to go and tell Modi and Shah that this 'taanashahi' (autocracy) will not work. Follow the rules. I will give you another example. Why isn’t the Opposition demanding a joint parliamentary probe? Because seeing the functioning of Standing Committees, it is crazy to demand a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe. No truth will come out. So, there is a broad agreement among Opposition parties that the Prime Minister and the Home Minister have to answer the questions on Pegasus. Outside parliament, as Mamata Banerjee has said, as Rahul Gandhi has said, there should be a judicial probe.

There are demands that there should be an oversight mechanism on intelligence agencies. What kind of mechanism should be there?

I am no technical expert. So, let me give you a simple thing on Pegasus. Did this government hire the software or acquired it from Pegasus? Yes or no? Who hired it? When was it hired? What is the cost? France is talking to Israel. And in India, this government is saying all this has happened to disrupt the Monsoon Session. Where are we? We appreciate what the Congress did on Sunday. They gave Abhishek Banerjee (Trinamool General Secretary who was a potential target for surveillance using Pegasus) as an example.

When you highlight this Pegasus issue, there is a feeling that you are ignoring the issues of price hike, fuel price hike which are really common man's problems. Is that a correct reading?

When a government has been there for seven years, they are answerable on many issues. You have to use whatever tactics and strategies that you command, and communicate those issues. Let me give you three examples. Farmer bill, we did a dharna outside Gandhi statue. Two, price rise and fuel price hike. It was raining, we came on cycles to Parliament. The young man who couldn't arrange oxygen for his grandmother and running around, that is an issue. The Prime Minister said in February that “sab teek ho gaya” on Covid-19. So it is not one issue. There are multiple issues. So, these are the questions people will ask Modi. I don’t think it is one issue, many issues.

Mamata Banerjee, the Trinamool chief and West Bengal Chief Minister, is in Delhi from Monday evening. How politically significant is her visit?

There is a new belief that these two -- Modi and Shah -- can be defeated. Overall, there is a new body language that the world’s most bigoted, the richest party in the world can be defeated. I want to say, in Bengal, we worked for 10 years and this is what we delivered. BJP said for seven years, this is what we delivered. This is a very important visit of Mamata Banerjee, this is a very important week for Indian politics. Obviously, she has said it, she is not seeking any chair, she is not seeking any post. But people believe that she is the personification of somebody who has conviction and who has the belief that we won not only because of the Trinamool manifesto in Bengal, we won because the people of Bengal chose us. On one hand, they had the BJP manifesto, on the other hand we presented the Constitution of India and the Trinamool manifesto. That is what won. That is the significance of Bengal.