This came as a soothing balm to many a wounded soul. A newspaper headline on Thursday read — Police accountability: Similar views of government and opposition in Parliamentary Standing Committee meeting. Two years were squandered on constituting the Standing Committees. Now here was not only a fully constituted meeting of one such, with all members present Including the concerned minister and his top officers, but very reassuringly, also the absence of a fracas, either vocal or brutal. This is what should have been from the very beginning of the seventh Parliament and this Is what shall be for the rest of this Sangsad, if the parties are not bent on self-aggrandisement at the cost of people's weal and the state's integrity. It is the Parliament which constitutes the totality of governance process and not certain, members of it. And when a duly elected member of the Sangsad is sworn in, he becomes a part of the process, this or that side of the divide, as either administering or watch dogging. If we must follow the Westminster model, we must also have members committed to the two-part governance. No one has the right to undermine this. No individual, no party.

Let Wednesday's closeness of approach to national problems, overcoming mutual recriminations, augur well for the next three years of this Sangsad. Parliamentary Standing Committees are the place for all the parties to come close, physically as well as attitudinally. There is no compulsion of posturing here, as there is on the Sangsad floor. These committees are for ironing out differences and ensuring the smooth functioning of the Sangsad. Let the committees bring sanity and health to the governance of this nation.

That day the parties saw eye to eye in the matter of ensuring police accountability and infusing efficiency into it, bringing back the chain of command into effect and taking up the task of law reforms with dispatch. The past successive governments had been instrumental in the police forces’ getting literally out of hand. Every caring soul in our society was feeling that none other than a consensus front of the parties could make this Frankenstein yield to governmental discipline of accountability and transparency. Wednesday’s proceedings of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs were a very encouraging first step towards that.