Pranab’s warning on House debate is timely

By not discussing the laws properly, MPs are ceding space to babus and judiciary

The figures are impressive: ‘543 persons from the 543 territorial constituencies of this country representing the people in Lok Sabha and 245 persons elected by 29 states and 7 Union Territories make laws, scrutinise orders of the executive and enforce accountability to protect the interests of the people. Each of these 788 voices is important.’ This is what the outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee told lawmakers on Sunday. Cut to the chase and this is what he meant: Mr Mukherjee cautioned the lawmakers that they are not spending enough time to debate the laws and this is a disservice to the people. Mr Mukherjee added with the heightened complexity of administration, legislation must be preceded by scrutiny and adequate discussion.

This is not the first time the Mr Mukherjee has reminded MPs about the quality of debates in the House. In May, he asked MPs and MLAs to improve the quality of deliberations, discussions and debates in the House, saying people have vested power and privileges in them. “You cannot remain the role model to the world simply because of the size of your electorate,” he warned them. According to data, 19.58% of the total time was lost due to interruptions/adjournments in the 14th Lok Sabha, 41.6% in the 15th Lok Sabha and about 16% in the 16th Lok Sabha (up to the 10th session). Other senior members including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Sonia Gandhi have also spoken on this challenge.

By not debating the laws properly, MPs and MLAs are not just doing a disservice to the people but also ceding ground to the bureaucracy and judiciary. Unfortunately, there seem to be no crusaders to change the state of play — only a select set who are talking about the crisis. It then becomes incumbent on this select set to be the force of change.