SERVICE EXPORTS-Unfair Treatment

Flip-Flop Game EVEN as leaders of the main political parties are at pains to emphasise their parties' ideological and programmatic distinctness, many coquetries are revealed by current parliamentary practice. Consequently a government which is in a minority in the Lok Sabha has not merely been able to command the confidence of the house but is also enabled to take major and substantive decisions on critical matters, in the process vindicating president R Venkataraman's invitation to the Congress to assume office. The nonchalance with which the minority government is carrying on like a secure majority government gives the lie to the opposition parties' scathing criticism of not only the decisions taken by the government but also its penchant for taking such decisions without consultation.