When UK parliament united against IS, ours fell shamelessly apart over petty issues

They say a copy can never be better than the original. And that is what the recent scenes in the parliaments of the United Kingdom and India proved. The latter might have adopted the format from the former, but its style is far from satisfactory.

The British House of Commons saw earlier this month the Opposition backing the David Cameron government's resolution to carry out air strikes against the Islamic State in Syria (it was passed by 397-223 votes). It was seen that the Shadow Foreign Secretary of the UK, Hilary Benn, asked his own party, the Labour, to take on the evil called the IS.

Even his party colleague and Leader of Opposition Jeremy Corbyn found himself in a minority for taking a pacifying stand on the issue. It didn't matter whether Cameron's Conservative Party has a mandate in the House. What mattered is that in a parliamentary democracy-numbers don't matter, consensus does.

Look at India in contrast

When one compares the scenario that unfolded in another parliamentary democracy which had borrowed its system from Westminster, the difference is like that between chalk and cheese. India, too, has a one-party majority government at the Centre at the moment led by Narendra Modi with a scattered Opposition.

But even then, when it comes to issues of national importance, the two sides never succeed in reaching a consensus. The prime minister himself becomes the ‘divisive agenda' of the Opposition, led by an otherwise hapless Congress, sparing no effort to deny him the minimum credit of taking initiatives that serve the country's purpose.

The ongoing chaos over the National Herald shows in poor light how the world's largest parliamentary democracy can be derailed even by a party with a minuscule presence in the people's House of Parliament.

The case doesn't originate in Parliament nor has anything to do with the executive but yet the Opposition finds a welcome opportunity to accuse the government of "vendetta politics" while their focus should be on passing key legislation.

Sessions after sessions in Parliament are getting washed out but the Opposition cares little about playing a role of responsibility.

The dynasty and its sycophants, under who the grand-old party remains just a shadow of its glorious past, are just concerned about disgracing Modi, even at the expense of the nation's interests.

It is an utter humiliation to the billion-plus electorate of this country that the Opposition is wasting precious time and crores by flexing its muscles in Parliament. Its idea to disallow Modi to take the credit for the GST, which was its own brain-child. But governance is about continuity and not political oneupmanship.