The Budget Session of the Goa Assembly is due to commence in July. Though, it is spread over 20 days, the effective duration for legislative business would be 14. Apart from the Question Hour, the main agenda is the general discussion on the Budget for the year and the vote on the Demands for Grants of the different ministries. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla during his visit to Goa this week, underlined that legislative debates are vital and expressed displeasure over the pruned assembly sessions.
It is pleasant to hear such talk but it would be a reality only when men occupying the exalted Chair in legislatures and parliament walk the talk. During my 15 months tenure as the member of the Goa assembly, I have not seen any serious and positive attempts for assembly sessions of reasonable durations. isThe priority to reduce and prune the sessions. In my short tenure, I have seen bills hurried through the House and over a dozen of them in one stroke become the laws within two-three hours of their introduction. There is no scope for study, consultation, discussion and debate which otherwise is supposedly the core function of legislators.
I consider the elected representative of the people as the repository of the trust of the people and a person who should stand by the poll promises made to the electorate. It does not augur well for democracy when MLAs betray the people’s trust by engaging in defections. Further, the Speakers sit on the disqualification petitions and further erode the people’s trust in democratic institutions. As an authority with no otherquasi-judicial business except the disqualification petitions, it is expected that the Speakers decide whichever way within the maximum 90-day limit imposed by the Supreme Court. What’s important is decision and disposal for the parties to move appellate forums.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla spoke on the responsibility of law makers to enact welfare schemes and also to strengthen democracy and democratic institutions. It is disturbing to observe that the public confidence in their elected representatives is falling. The trust in the elected representatives is low and it is further sinking rapidly post 2014.
A developed Bharat is a democratic and inclusive India, it cannot be anything else. A Developed India of 2047, when the nation hits the century should be that India which awakens into that heaven of freedom nicely elucidated by the poet Rabindranath Tagore in his largely quoted work “WHERE THE MIND IS WITHOUT FEAR”. It was a big challenge in 1947. The challenge is even bigger today as democratic institutions are being dismantled and the basic freedoms of expression and choice are under attack from state and non-state actors.
