Modern journalistic practice frowns upon excessive reference to literary classics, yet there is scope for exceptions. Nothing could better describe the over-hyped action in the Lok Sabha than “Much ado about nothing”.

It made limited impact on prevailing political realities, served even less as a pointer to 2019. Nor were there positive signals about an emerging “front”, few signs that regional stalwarts would accept Rahul Gandhi as its leader. And for all its development sloganeering, the BJP indicated it would fall back on its pet-agenda of polarisation.

Perhaps the sole sincerity came from the Telegu Desam Party’s reiteration of Andhra Pradesh having been short-changed: but since that received only token endorsement from other Opposition groups it was anything but a case of “All’s well that ends well”.

At best, the Opposition got its pound of flesh in that the occasion afforded opportunity for relatively uninterrupted assault on the government, but it miserably failed to draw even a drop of blood ~ as proved by the 325-126 verdict. That scoreboard answered Sonia’s “who told you….”

Willy-nilly the proceedings boiled down to a Rahul-Modi confrontation, but neither enhanced the “quality” of the present Lok Sabha. The Rahul fan-club would claim that his aggressive assault on the NDA was an eye-opener, and that the “no hate” policy of the Congress was emphasised by his unprecedented gesture of hugging Mr Modi at the end of it.

Alas, a puerile wink at the end of it confirmed that while he may have graduated from schoolboy to college level debating, the “Pappu” tag remained firmly affixed. Mr Narendra Modi has never had the flourish of a Vajpayee or incisiveness of an Advani; he adheres to the theory that repeating something consistently enough converts fiction into fact ~ and he was woefully short of fact on Friday, rhetoric was his favoured weapon.

The argument that two wrongs add up to a right still dominates Rajnath Singh’s mindset. He justified the recent spate of lynching by recalling the massacre of 1984 ~ forgetting the ethnic cleansing in Modi’s Gujarat in 2002. All talk of being sincere about condemning lynching falls flat when Jayant Sinha and Giriraj Singh retain their slots in the ministerial council.

With some assistance from France, Nirmala Sitharaman made an issue of Rahul’s allegations on the Rafale deal, but is yet to explain why the estimated price of other imported weapons systems is made public. Is it her case that taxpayers are not entitled to know how their money is spent? If so, this is a new twist to democracy.

As for the other key player on Friday, the less said the better. What prevented the Speaker from spreading the debate over two days and giving everyone a fair say ~ Parliament has sat on Saturday before. Truly, inept handling from the Chair ensured 12 hours of result-less, nonsensical, shallow drama.