(Un)Parliamentary Crisis

Frequent adjournments rock monsoon session

No bill has passed in the Lok Sabha since the monsoon session of the Parliament commenced more than a fortnight back. Frequent disruptions and adjournments have robbed the precious hours, and important bills, including the Food Security Bill, are yet to find the light of the day.

Adding salt to the wound, a few MPs from Andhra Pradesh resorted to unparliamentary behaviour by trying to pull down the microphone of the Speaker Meira Kumar on Thursday, when a motion was moved to suspend them for continuously disrupting the session over Telangana issue. This is only the latest in the series of such shameful acts by our elected representatives; they getting into physical fights in the Well of and throwing chairs at each other have been widely reported in media. What is wrong with our system?

Facts:

Statistics show the number of days devoted for the parliament sessions is decreasing over the years.

• 1st Lok Sabha held sessions for 3,784 days (with 677 active hours).
• 5th Lok Sabha held sessions for highest number of days – 4,072 (613 active hours).
• Numbers plummeted since the 10th Lok Sabha which held sessions for 2,528 days (423 hours).
• 14th Lok Sabha which ended in 2009 spent just 1,737 days (332 hours).
• Situation is much worse with the current Lok Sabha (15th).
• Successive governments are showing less interest in convening the Parliament sessions. UPA reserved only 12 active days in this monsoon session to table 40 plus bills, meaning hardly three hours for each bill!
• The monsoon session of 2007, supposed to begin in mid-July, was delayed until August 10 due to the visit of the Prime Minister of Japan.
• In 2008, the monsoon session lasted for just 2 days and was suspended later for reasons not clear

B L Shanker, former Speaker, Karnataka Legislative Council, as told to City Today

Parliament is a sacred platform to discuss and debate pressing issues of the country. The members of the House, if they have a strong case, can use it judiciously to contribute for the policy decisions and to drive home important messages to the countrymen.

Sadly, the members of the House are forcing frequent adjournments and resorting to unparliamentarily behaviour. Those who are resorting to such behaviour and causing wastage of public money do not have any strong points to make in the Parliament. It is a desperate act by them to hog the limelight by occupying more space on television channels.

I think the advent of television channels is the prime reason for the increase in unparliamentary behaviour of our immature leaders. The proceedings in the Rajya Sabha are happening smoothly when compared to Lok Sabha because the members of the Upper House do not need to keep their popularity high by appearing on TV channels.

The members of the House should understand that all issues – small and big – cannot be discussed in the Parliament. Some MPs from Andhra Pradesh have been disrupting the monsoon session since it started. What they are going to achieve by this except wasting taxpayers’ money? There should be a method even in madness.

The members resorting unparliamentary behaviour should be severely dealt with irrespective of the party they belong to. There should not be any politics over discipline and the decorum needed to be maintained inside the House. Otherwise, it spawns anarchy in the House and sends a wrong message to the people.

Continuous disruption of the parliamentary proceedings prompts the citizens of the country to believe that the Legislature does not protect the country’s interest but the Judiciary and the Executive. The latter two pillars of democracy will have a moral upper hand in the day-today running of the government and it is not a good development.

These days, no debate happens even during the Question Hour and one should know that a lot of money is spent to prepare for the details to be presented during this hour. We have a Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) which deliberates over major issues with due diligence and submits to the Parliament for further debate. But these days, the political parties are not ready to wait for the PAC report. Then why do we need something like PAC?

Both the Government and the Opposition should not hesitate to discuss any issue of importance during the Parliament sessions. We should formulate rules to penalise the members of the House by way of withdrawing various benefits they enjoy for being in the privileged position. Also, it should be the case that the Parliament sessions are continued as long as the debate does not happen on important agendas.

(Published as Oped on City Today on August 23, 2013)