All that we beg to place before them is, "Ladies and gentlemen remember you were not mandated for this kind of behavior and wastage of valuable parliamentary time by those who voted for you. They expect exemplary behavior from you as the elected representatives of the people of India. Just remember what kind of example you are setting."

Seeing the misery and concern of the Lok Sabha Speaker and the Rajya Sabha Chairman in the previous session of Parliament one feels pained how the Indian Parliament feels serious threat within.

This time the attack does not come from outside but it is an internal security threat, a sort of intentional or unintentional sabotage of the functioning of the greatest institution of Indian democracy for petty politics.

The fact that the Speaker of the 14th Lok Sabha has been constrained to remind the honorable Members of Parliament, belonging to all political parties to observe decency, decorum and discipline, reminding them again and again that the entire nation and the whole world is watching this game of allegation mongering and mudslinging on rivals at the cost of the nation.

The argument often forwarded defensively by the scene creators in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha that others, when they were in the Opposition, behaved the same way, does not make sense.

It is sheer insanity to follow the dictum that "I am justified in stealing because my neighbor is a thief". We are not singling out any single honorable Member of Parliament for his personal conduct on the floor of the house to which he or she belongs, and outside in the streets.

All that we beg to place before them is: "Ladies and gentlemen remember you were not mandated for this kind of behavior and wastage of valuable parliamentary time by those who voted for you. They expect exemplary behavior from you as the elected representatives of the people of India. Just remember what kind of example you are setting."

Tainted Ministers

Talk of tainted ministers, and angry and rowdy scenes to prove who is more rowdy than the other. Who is more tainted than the other, and who is the sole representative of the people of India, despite the fact that the great loudmouths are reduced to patch up clock work orange coalitions with a bought and sold majority of one, two or three seats often.

It does not speak well of their constant tendency of questionable ideological compromises at the cost of those who placed faith in them at the time of the poll and hoped that they would redeem the promises in their manifesto and not subserviently bow to the brute pressure of their own coalitional partners who parasite more than perform.

Like a leading Indian journalists Mr. Inder Malhotra has raised the issue, how can the angry agitators against the tainted ministers, happily swallow the presence of Members of Parliament who also face the allegations of being taint as much as the ministers?

Mr Malhotra has rightly underlined the concern that making the nations apex legislature totally dysfunction is remedy infinitely worse than the disease it is supposed to cure.

In his very thought provoking commentary on "The stalling of Parliament" in The Hindu, Mr Malhotra has pointed out that "The BJP is living in a make-believe world if it thinks that the country is taken in by its self-righteous shouting and has forgotten its own double standards and duplicitous stand on the self-same question of tainted ministers.

Atal Bihari disregarded democratic demand?

Were not Mr Advani (then no less than Deputy Prime Minister), Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti "tainted" when they were charge sheeted by a court of law under some of the sections of the Indian Penal Code that Lalu Prasad has also attracted? Did Atal Bihari Vajpayee rise to the highest standards of democracy and immediately accept the demand for the sacking of the trio? Of course, he did not.

And yet the BJP protagonists have the cheek to accuse Dr. Manmohan Singh of "tainting" his own sterling reputation.

If we add other people's concerns to those of the eminent journalist like Mr Inder Malhotra, some of them have raised the issue of those who are "tainted" by the same standards which minister bashers flaunt, but not ministers yet, only MPs who could become ministers in the world of permutations and combinations of very curious types.

Why not ask them too to resign their parliament or state legislature seats because there are charge sheets against them? One estimate put it that at least 129 members of parliament could be covered by the "taint" definition and some went to the extent of calling that a "criminal lobby" is active in politics too.

And such "representatives of the people" supporting "taint" with their names belonged to almost all the parties, both national and regional. What about attacking the evil at its roots and disqualify them for life.

Taint and corruption are ever promoted, protected and covered up by the governments which are formed on ice thin majorities, even after working out the most incredible coalitions of bought and sold legislators and party fractions.

Why not have a law to ban such coalitions of convenience that certainly violate all norms of democracy and betray the mandate of the voters?

(The contents and ideas contained in the article are of the writer only and not of the Management. Any clarification or query regarding this article, you can e mail directly to Vipin Agnihotri, the writer of this article. His Email  is:  nit43@rediffmail.com).

Print Version

Go Back

Applelounge Network (Website Design India, Web Design India) Sites
Astrology India | Google Sitemaps | Matrimonial | Internet Marketing Company | Coaching Jobs

About Us | Advertise With Us | Write for Us | Contact Us | IR Syndicate | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use
Copyright © 2008 Media International Limited. All Rights Reserved.