Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a great fascination for charchas: pariksha pe charcha, chai pe charcha and now dinner pe charcha. Modi’s ‘charchas’ on all such occasions are, in fact, one-sided discourses by the leader, never active interactions with the audience.The same thing happens when he attends BJP fora like a national executive or parliamentary party meetings. Modi comes, addresses the function and leaves. Unlike earlier prime ministers, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, he does not sit and listen to what others have to say, nor does he participate in discussions. That is a sharp contrast with his bête noire Jawaharlal Nehru, who was known for taking notes of what others said and replying to those.As per the emerging practice, Modi must never be treated as an ordinary party leader – always as the first among unequals. It is this imperious disposition that forces his party MPs to treat him in parliament as someone who makes rare appearances and leaves in a hurry. Unlike earlier PMs, he rarely attends parliament sessions. He treats parliament as an unwanted hurdle. But at another level, he uses its approval as an endorsement for his public postures and positions he adopts. He bows at its entrance but unlike his predecessors, he scarcely attends house proceedings.Rahul Gandhi has emerged as the sole target of all-out attacks when the first leg of the Budget Session ended on February 13. After a break, the house will reassemble on March 9. By then, Mo-Sha will have unveiled the ruling party’s strategy to effectively silence Gandhi.The immediate reason for Modi’s heightened onslaught on Gandhi has been the way he exposed the government’s one-sided deal struck with US President Donald Trump and its ruinous implications for India. He repeatedly emphasised the various hidden clauses in the deal. And he said this happened because Modi was under pressure from Trump to bend at his knees.“There is a chokehold on Modi and the reins are with Trump,” asserted Gandhi, to the chagrin of the BJP boss. Whenever Trump tightens the reins, Modi yields, Gandhi went on. This forces him to always be at Trump’s beck and call.This is the reason for Modi’s ire towards Rahul. The BJP top brass has realised that someone they had all the while derided as ‘Pappu’ and ‘part time politician’ has emerged as their most formidable adversary. Hence, over the past few weeks, the BJP’s big two have mobilised every means at their disposal to silence, humiliate and attack Gandhi in and out of parliament.Not just that. Presiding officers are also being pressured to expunge what the opposition said in both houses of parliament. Among the victims of such blanket expunging were opposition MPs such as Mallikarjun Kharge.Consider the substantive motion against Gandhi introduced by BJP leader Nishikant Dubey. It was obviously done on instructions from the top two, and levels several serious charges against the Congress leader. Dubey has sought the cancellation of Gandhi’s Lok Sabha membership and disbarment from contesting for life. Gandhi was ‘conspiring’ with elements hostile to India, such as US billionaire-philanthropist George Soros, the Ford Foundation and USAID, says Dubey.Gandhi, Dubey alleges, travelled to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and the US to engage in anti-India ‘conspiracies’. With the help of ‘foreign’ support, he has ‘very cleverly’ captured the ‘most pious dais of parliament’ and from there he has levelled unfounded allegations against the judiciary and Election Commission of India.Outside parliament, Delhi Police filed an FIR alleging coordinated efforts to bypass the Union Ministry of Defence, which has not cleared former Army chief General M.M. Naravane’s book. This was after Gandhi displayed the book on the floor of the house. But Rahul was adamant: “Motions against me or FIR, I will continue the fight for farmers welfare,” he asserted, a reference to the anti-farmer aspects in the US-India trade agreement that he has been raising.The Opposition’s own no-trust motion against the Lok Sabha Speaker has already exposed the Mo-Sha regime’s inherent reluctance to have a Deputy Speaker for the Lok Sabha. The reason is Modi’s unwillingness to concede any constitutional position to an opposition member. This has forced Speaker Om Birla to pick an old hand to act as temporary speaker.Since 2019 (when the 17th Lok Sabha convened), India has been managing without a Deputy Speaker in Parliament. According to Article 93, as soon as the house meets after the general election, the Speaker and Deputy Speaker must be elected one after the other. After the 2019 election, the Speaker’s election was not followed by the election process for a Deputy Speaker. This unprecedented situation continues in the 18th Lok Sabha.“It is the first time the Lok Sabha is functioning without a deputy speaker for such a long time,” said P.D.T. Acharya, former Lok Sabha Secretary General. The absence of the Deputy Speaker was felt when the Speaker had to be hospitalised last year.There are two more dubious practices invented by the Modi regime. The first is to mark controversial bills as ‘money bills’. This has helped the BJP get Bills approved without having to go through the Rajya Sabha, where it lacked a comfortable majority. The party effectively circumvented the Rajya Sabha ‘hurdle’. The same is the case with bypassing parliamentary panels meant to critically examine draft legislation.In the case of the Aadhaar Act, another ‘money bill’, the Supreme Court read down some provisions. Similarly, over the years, it was found that several provisions of the Finance Bill had ‘non-financial’ provisions, such as to restructure tribunals, issue electoral bonds and amend the Foreign Contribution (Amendment) Act, 2020, which significantly amended the Foreign Contribution Regulatory Act, 2010.Whenever the opposition has been weak and unable to assert itself in parliament, the ruling party has rushed through crucial bills. Consider the undue haste with which the Jammu and Kashmir (Reorganisation) Bill, 2019 and the controversial farm bills of 2020 were passed, without providing MPs time to study their provisions. None of these Bills were subjected to committee scrutiny. The farm Bills were aimed at facilitating control of agricultural produce marketing by power-aligned business groups. They had to be dumped following the massive farmers’ agitation.As a result of this disturbing trend, the percentage of bills referred to parliamentary committees has drastically reduced from 71 in the 15th Lok Sabha to 27 in Modi’s 16th Lok Sabha. It was just around 13 since then. The same with ordinances, another indicator of the regime’s reluctance for effective debate. Between 2004 and 2014, just over 60 ordinances were passed, an average of around six a year. During Mo-Sha’s first eight years, it crossed 80 or more than ten a year on average.Similarly, the 14th and 15th Lok Sabhas under prime minister Manmohan Singh had a total of 96 short duration discussions. But the number declined to just 44 (and three of these never concluded) during the 16th and 17th Lok Sabhas, Modi’s tenures. Take the case of calling attention motions. They declined from as many as 152 under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) governments to a mere 17 under Modi’s two stints in Lok Sabha (this figure was zero during the 17th Lok Sabha). In the case of half-an-hour discussions, the figures were 21 under the UPA and six under Modi. Between 2004 and 2014, 99.38% of assurances were implemented. During the Modi years, it dropped to 79%.The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and other ministries have made it a practice to meddle in house proceedings. They direct the presiding officers on what kinds of questions are to be answered in both houses. Recently, the PMO sent a communication to the presiding officers, asking them to stop accepting questions on the PM Cares Fund and other national funds. In all such cases, the presiding officers obligingly follow the outside instructions.The Modi regime has also set another record: it has suspended the largest number of Opposition MPs. Of the 143 suspended, 95 were from the Lok Sabha and the rest from the upper house. The 17th Lok Sabha was the shortest since 1952. During that session, no bill was sent to a select committee.The 17th Lok Sabha was also known for the scant disregard shown for deliberative democracy. Half of the bills passed during the period saw less than two hours’ debate. And only 16% of the Bills were sent to select committees. Also compare this regime’s performance with that of Vajpayee’s time in power. While the latter held 59 short discussions, Modi’s tally is just six.When conversation is replaced by command and parliament reduced to spectacle, democracy survives in form – but not in spirit.In an age of fractured mandates, personality cults and transactional alliances, P. Raman brings clarity to India’s shifting political equations. With Realpolitik, the veteran journalist peers beneath the slogans and spin to reveal the power plays, spectacle, crises and insecurities driving India’s politics.