On the opening day itself, the Government was put on the mat by the Opposition led by the Left MPs who said that no concrete steps had been taken to check the spiralling price rise and that the Government had no clue as to how to go about matters. The Government was saved by none other than the Congress Party which is being seen to play a negative role since its silence giving the Government elbow room and breathing space. If an adjournment motion had been allowed to take place on the first day as the Left had insisted, the Government would have been exposed after the mandatory voting.But the Congress, in its wisdom, chose to keep quiet since it has apparently not yet made up its mind about its political gameplan.

However, the Government has cut a sorry figure in the first week of Parliament itself; so much so that at one stage, the finance minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, had to plead with Mr P.Chidambaram not to go on with his criticism since he knew the responsibility and the problems of the portfolio all too well. There were two walkouts led by the Left in both Houses of Parliament.

The Government has been playing its usual game with the price rise issue, making it known earlier last week that it would bring in amendments to the Essential Commodities Act, making it more stringent to protect the common man from the clutches of hoarders and big business. However, this was said only for effect and the finance minister, when cornered, could offer no concrete date for the introduction of the amended Bill forcing the Opposition to walk out of both the Houses.

The Insurance Bill, which the Government is hell bent on introducing in this session of Parliament, has exposed the BJP as never before and the Left as well as the other Opposition parties have continued to resist it, saying that the foreign participation in the insurance sector would actually open up dangers which would threaten our economy. BJP MPs like Uma Bharati and the Sangh Parivar led by the RSS have openly criitcised the Bill saying that this would infringe on their brand of ``Swadeshi’’ which brought the party to power in the first place.

The Left has decided that it will fight the Patents Bill tooth and nail and its MPs have openly said in the House that the Bill, if made into law, would harm the rights of the farmers and working classes since it was nothing but an ``open door invitation’’ to the WTO, IMF and the US, in particular, to turn India into one of their many killing fields. The Industries minister, Mr Sikander Bakht, had an uneasy week in Parliament when he could not explain the rationale behind the proposed law and its obvious dangers for the labour force.

The Bill, which was introduced first in 1994 by the then Congress government only to be defeated in the Rajya Sabha after it was rushed through in the Lower House, is symptomatic of what ails both the BJP and the Congress. In 1994, the BJP had opposed the Bill but now the two parties seem to be in league in trying to force this new law on the unsuspecting people.

Apart from the walkouts and the cornering of the Government on various vital issues, the week also saw the disaster in the shape of Trinaul Congress leader, Ms Mamata Banerjee, collaring a Samajwadi Party MP and refusing to allow the business of the House on Friday, the day when the entire country spontaneously observed an industrial strike called by 54 national organisations owing allegiance to the Left.