MUMBAI, 6 February 2008 — Vice President Mohammed Hamid Ansari has slammed political parties for selecting wrong candidates for Parliament and state assemblies.
Speaking at the inauguration of the 14th All-India Whips Conference here on Monday night, Ansari, who is also the chairman of the Rajya Sabha (upper house of Parliament), also criticized politicians for frequent disruption of legislature sessions.
The vice president underlined the need for a review of the functioning of legislatures in their day-to-day work in order to optimize their productivity. Whips of political parties are mute spectators to disruptions and thereby fail to discharge their primary duty of facilitating the functioning of the legislature, he said.
“Political groups do not observe sufficient care in the selection of their representatives in legislatures. Nearly 23 percent of MPs elected in 2004 had criminal cases registered against them, over half of these are cases that could lead to imprisonment of five or more years. The situation is worse in the case of state legislators. This has a negative impact on public opinion,” Ansari said.
The former ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia pointed out: “The writing on the wall is clear. The instrumentalities at the disposal of our legislatures have either been blunted or become dysfunctional. The most important issue of concern today is the decreasing credibility of our legislatures. What is needed is a review of the functioning of the legislatures in their day-to-day work in order to optimize their productivity.”
Ansari lamented that the deliberative functions of the legislature are in decline. All sides of the house bear responsibility for it.
“The treasury benches shy away from substantive discussion of issues of public concern, while the opposition prefers to use the so-called Zero Hour only to mention these issues in hyperbolic terms. Deliberation is thus reduced to a zero sum game. Policies are offered to the public as products, the electorate is denied a peep into the process. The whole process reflects adversely on Parliament as an institution of accountability in a democracy. This has serious implications for democracy itself,” Ansari said.
Increasing the number of its sitting per year to about 130 days will go a long way in restoring the deliberative role of the Parliament. The comparative figures for the British and Canadian Parliaments are in excess of 140. The US Congress is in session, on an average, for over 150 days in a year, Ansari said, and added: “If time is lost due to disruptions it should be compensated for, the same day, by sitting beyond normal hours. The chair should take up with the whips, on a daily basis, incidents of violation of behavioral norms by members. The rule about naming members should be invoked whenever necessary.”
