Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on October 29, 2019 unveiled a 15-point reform charter as the basis for a new political normal to enable effective functioning of Parliament and State Legislatures.
Mr Naidu dwelt at length on the present pitfalls of Parliamentary democracy while delivering the first Arun Jaitley Memorial Lecture on Strengthening of Parliamentary Institutions in the Country at Delhi University on October 29. Mr Naidu called for a new political consciousness urging all the stakeholders to review their mindset with regard to their roles and responsibilities.
To ensure attendance of at least 50% of their legislators all through the proceedings of the Houses by adopting a roster system.
Shri Naidu called for a review of the Whip so as to enable reasonable degree of dissent without impacting the stability of the government.
The Vice President also advocated a thorough review of the Anti Defection Law to rectify the grey areas like incentivising legislators to resort to actions inviting expulsion from the party besides providing for time bound disposal of defection cases by the Presiding Officer.
Referring to the functioning of the Department Related Standing Committees that came into being in 1993 for detailed examination of legislative proposals, Demands for Grants and other select subjects on behalf of the Parliament, Shri Naidu expressed concern over declining attendance, lack of specialisation, limited tenure of one year, frequent hopping of Committees etc.
Emphasising the need for well thought out and focused legislation with the participation of stakeholders, Shri Naidu proposed a detailed framework based pre and post Legislative Impact Assessment. He stressed that every legislative proposal shall incorporate a detailed account of social, economic, environmental and administrative impact for wider awareness and subsequent assessment of the effect of legislation on ground.
Conceding that the present ‘First Pass The Post (FPTP)’ system of electing people’s representatives is faulty to the extent that MPs and MLAs are being elected with substantially less than 50% of voter support, Shri Naidu, however, said that there is no alternative at present.
Some of the suggestions
- Both pre and post Legislative Impact Assessment to be ensured for quality and informed law making for creating wider awareness about the targeted outcomes by bringing out social, economic, environmental and administrative impacts besides the involvement of all stakeholders in law making;
- Ensuring effective functioning of the Department Related Standing Committees of Parliament through longer tenures instead of reconstitution every year as at present besides promoting specialisation by nomination on the committees based on academic backgrounds and their renomination on the same committees for longer period. I would like to discuss this issue with the Speaker, Lok Sabha for further action;
- Taking forward the legislation in the Parliament for reservation of women in legislatures whose representation is at present only about 13%;
- A minimum number of sittings for both the Parliament and State Legislatures per year to be appropriately prescribed and compliance ensured;
- Law makers should abide by the Rules of the House and political parties to take responsibility in this regard by evolving and enforcing a code of conduct;
- Making rules that automatically take effect against erring Members in case of interruptions and disruptions;
- Political parties to evolve roster system for ensuring attendance of at least 50% of their members in the legislatures all through the proceedings of the House everyday to address the issue of lack of quorum;
- Secretariats of legislatures to publish regular reports on the attendance of members inside during the proceedings and the extent of their participation in the form of questions raised, debates participated in etc.;
- Legislature parties to ensure that the new entrants and back benchers are given adequate opportunities to participate in the debates instead of fielding only a select and established few;
- To evolve a new political consciousness under which tickets to contest elections will not be given merely on the criteria of winnability by political parties to address the problem of rising number of legislators with criminal backgrounds;
- To review the functioning of the Anti-Defection Law to address grey areas like incentivising members to resort to activities that invite expulsion from the parties besides stipulating specific time frame for deciding on defection matters by the Presiding Officers of Legislatures;
- To review the functioning of ‘Whip System‘ which is being alleged to be stifling even reasonable dissent from the party position even on non-consequential matters and rationalise the norms for issuing Whip to enable some degree of freedom of expression without adversely affecting stability of the Government;
- Setting up special courts/tribunals for time bound adjudication on criminal complaints against legislators and election related matters;
- Timely and effective action against legislators for non-ethical conduct; and
- Governments to be responsive to the views and concerns of the Opposition and the Opposition to be responsible and constructive while resorting to the available parliamentary instruments like Adjournment Motions and during participation in the debates and both sides to avoid cynical and adversarial position just for the sake of it.
- Consensus to be built on the proposal for simultaneous elections so that governance is not adversely impacted on account of staggered and continuous polls across the country and also to address the problem of rising money power in elections.
