An unwarranted step

THE CONSENSUS THAT the political parties seem to have been arrived at to freeze the Lok Sabha's strength at 540 only until 2011 rather than let it remain so until 2025 is clearly without any justification. The idea to advance the date, as it appears, was to concede (partly) the Congress' demand that the Lok Sabha's strength be increased right away. There may be a valid reason behind the demand that the delimitation exercise - to redraw the constituency maps in 2001 - must address the need to correct the disproportionate nature (in terms of the number of people represented by each MP) of the Lok Sabha constituencies; it may be a fact that there is an incongruity in the representative character between MPs elected from some of the predominantly urban constituencies (Chandni Chowk for example) with a huge population and those elected from constituencies where the total number of voters is only a small fraction of that in the cities. It may also be true that those MPs representing such intensely populated constituencies are at a disadvantage in dealing with and catering to the aspirations of the people. But then, there is also the overwhelming need to ensure that the Lok Sabha does not become too unwieldy. And there have been instances in the past where even the present strength had looked to be a bit too unwieldy.

The immediate context in which the issue had come up at this stage and the sense of urgency with which the Government had convened a meeting of the various political groups in Parliament is the 91st Constitution (Amendment) Bill. There is the imperative of redrawing the constituency maps without changing the existing number of constituencies in each State; and this exercise will have to be completed before 2001. The rationale behind restricting the delimitation exercise to mere redrawing of the constituency maps and refraining from increasing the number of constituencies (in proportion to the population) was that such a step will be a disincentive to those States with a positive record on the population control front. And the idea to advance the further revision of the Lok Sabha's strength by 15 years - to 2011 - will certainly have the same kind of adverse effect; the prospect of more MPs (in the event of a revision in just over a decade from now) will be seen as incentive by the political classes from those States to further dampen the population control programmes apart from serving as a disincentive to those States where the population control measures have met with a fair amount of success. In other words, this will be contrary to the spirit of the recommendations of the National Population Council that the States with a reasonably good record on the population control front must be provided with incentives.

Be that as it may, the concern for improving the representative character of the MPs, will, indeed be served better if only those elected to Parliament take their role far more seriously than they do now. It has been the experience, at least in recent years, that the floor of the two Houses of Parliament (as well as State Legislatures) is used by members across the spectrum to settle scores of a partisan political nature rather than to address any serious legislative concerns or raise issues that confront the people. There have been instances in the past when Bills, including amendments to the Constitution and budgetary allocations, have been passed without even a customary debate only because much of Parliament's time was lost because of adjournments forced by members (who seemed to consider the floor of the Legislature rather than the streets to be the venue for agitational politics) of all political hues. Some introspection on Parliament's functioning rather than seeking an upward revision of the Lok Sabha's strength will serve the cause of democracy and the representative character of the House better.

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Section  : Opinion
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