The Parliament session gets underway drawing a blank on the opposition boycott persisting even to this day on the question of a caretaker government to conduct the next general election. Technically, of course, there was no bar to holding the session from today. Because it is within the stipulated sixty-day period that must intervene between two parliamentary sessions but in spirit it strikes one both as preponed and a premature step. For. even within the ambit of pure technicality there was a leeway for having this session Just after the first week of September, counting from the day the budget session had ended. This critical respite could be utilised to intensify efforts to bring the parties together for a dialogue on the caretake issue leading perhaps to a face-saving formula in the least, before calling the Parliament into session.

There is a confusing entanglement of dates and approaches that cast a long shadow over the prospects for ending the political impasse. We are given to understand that the Speaker of the Jatiya Sangsad has to attend an international seminar. a fact that influenced the decision to advance the date of the session. It has also been suggested that depending on how the negotiations shaped in the coming days the Parliament would be adjourned to lend these a finishing touch. One wonders what is being actually emphasised here — behind-the-scene negotiations or sorting out matters within the four walls of the Parliament?

This smacks of a tactical see-saw approach by those who ought to take the leading initiative to break the deadlock as the ruling party. Yes. the opposition has scheduled a Dhaka siege for September 10 as a pressure tactic. If taking the matter to the street is a desperate action that does not cohere with any underlying intent for a dialogue so also are the offer for dialogue and the penchant for the tactical incompatible with each other. But the government's rofe can-be reactive to that of the opposition under certain circumstances but not certainly reactionary. It has to take the leading initiative to end a political crisis. The Narasimha Rao government in India went to the extent of withdrawing the 'Action Taken Report' on the financial scandal and promising to rewrite it Just to make sure the boycotting opposition return to the Lok Sabha. Apparently he yielded to the opposition pressure but in reality he is the winner as a pragmatic defender of the democratic system.

The latest indications here are that both the government and the opposition are willing to hold a dialogue. The ruling party is for a discussion on a two-point agenda — the caretaker issue and its bill for strengthening the EC. The opposition have softened its position from an outright insistence on a government bill for a caretaker government to its demand that caretaker issue be specified by the government as the maty item -on tne agenda. But it is of the essence in-a dialogue that it is held with an open mind and not from pre-determined positions.

Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia's cancellation of the Cairo visit signifies that she values si iving home to .mend to some "domestic preoccupations.” But her seriousness is yet to per-meaU the lower levels of the ruling party hierar chy.