Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu. (Photo: Twitter/@VPSecretariat)
Vice-President and Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday said that if disruptions in parliamentary proceedings continue, people will lose faith in law-makers and the political class. He was speaking at the valedictory session of the two-day National Legislators Conference at the Central Hall of Parliament, hosted by Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan. The theme of the conference was “We For Development”.
Naidu said deteriorating standard of legislatures was eroding credibility of people’s representatives. “The growing hold of legislators over the executive, dispensing favours for a consideration, criminal antecedents, spurt in assets after being elected, displaying placards and banners inside the legislatures, persistent disruptions, defections and electoral malpractices are eroding the credibility of elected representatives posing a serious challenge to the parliamentary democracy,” he said.
Referring to the issue of absenteeism, he said at times he had to press the quorum bell (to get at least 10 per cent members into the House to be run the proceedings). The responsibility for ensuring a quorum lay on both the government and the opposition, he said. “All is not well that ends up in the Well (of the House),” he said, referring to the protests, which mark the current budget session.
He stressed that political parties and people have a responsibility in ensuring that persons with the right antecedents got elected. Law-makers, according to him, would be failing in their duty if they did not provide a solution to problems faced by the people. However, he acknowledged that issues could not be settled on the basis of numbers alone. Therefore, he observed, the Opposition should have its say and the government should have its way. This is the only way forward, he said.
The legislators, in his view, should exercise only two options in the legislatures — “talk out” or “walk out”. He said governments should increase the number of sittings of legislatures. Emphasising on the need for restoring the legitimacy of legislators, he said: “This requires the MPs and MLAs to focus more on their legitimate functions of lawmaking, democratic mass mobilisation and participation, effective articulation of public concerns, acting as an effective bridge between the governments and the governed and not encroaching unnecessarily into the domain of the executive.”
Naidu said democracy is a forum for negotiated solutions for bettering the lives of the people and urged the elected representatives to desist from a confrontationist approach to enable effective functioning of legislatures.
“Informed and quality debates of yesteryears have come to be replaced by persistent disruptions as the new norm of parliamentary articulation.”
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the legislators from across the country that they should target issues and not individuals during debates. One should be aggressive on issues and not people. In this regard, he said statements targeted at individuals should be avoided. He said when an individual is targeted by a lawmaker during a debate in parliament, a small section enjoys the show. because a legislator was sure to lose credibility if he was not able to substantiate the charges made by him.
Jaitley said serious discussions in the House got little attention, compared to widespread news coverage of pandemonium in Parliament. But today, in parliaments world over, the focus is subject of the debate, not on a person, he said.
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