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Undemocratic ways

THE MANNER IN which the Uttar Pradesh State Assembly Speaker had acted in not allowing even a customary discussion on several motions of importance, including the motion of thanks for the Governor's address, the State budget and the motion of no-confidence moved by a combined Opposition in the State Assembly runs counter to the norms of parliamentary democracy. The adjournment sine die of the Assembly session even before the Opposition could realise that such important matters of business of the House were being put to vote is not just an affront to the established procedures that guide the functioning of the House but also an indication of how partisan the Speaker, Kesrinath Tripathi, could turn. The abrupt adjournment of the House, just hours after the Opposition had moved the no-confidence motion and without even waiting to go through the formality of convening the Business Advisory Committee (the appropriate forum to decide on the schedule for debate and voting on the motion), hence, is violative of the House procedure. For this very reason, it is now imperative for the Governor, Vishnu Kant Shastri, to instruct the Chief Minister to convene a session of the Assembly and also ensure that the House proceedings are conducted according to established norms and procedures. This has become important because the adjournment of the House soon after the no-confidence motion was tabled has raised a doubt over the Government's majority support.

While the demand by the Samajwadi Party along with the Congress and the Left parties in Parliament for dismissal of the Mayawati Government is without basis (for the BSP-BJP combine has not yet been reduced to a minority in the Assembly as of now), it is necessary for the ruling combine in Uttar Pradesh to demonstrate its majority in the context of the happenings in the Assembly. The move by the combined Opposition in Uttar Pradesh to seek the Governor's intervention to ensure that the Assembly session is convened immediately is indeed appropriate in this context. Ms. Mayawati's actions in the past few months, beginning with her moves to effect splits in the Congress Legislature Party as well as in the smaller outfits such as the Apna Dal (after a section in the BJP raised the banner of revolt against her continuance as Chief Minister) and rewarding such dissidents with ministerial berths, had even otherwise eroded the legitimacy of the dispensation considerably. The concerted moves by the Opposition including the coming together of the Congress and the Samajwadi Party in the State in recent weeks and indications that a section within the BJP Legislature Party was willing go against her in the Assembly had raised doubts over the combine's strength in the House. The no-confidence motion, moved in the immediate aftermath of revelations (in the form of videotapes in which Ms. Mayawati is alleged to have exhorted her party MLAs and MPs to part with a portion of their spoils from the funds at their disposal under the MPLADS) had assumed significance for several reasons. The move to bring the Assembly session to an abrupt end raises serious questions in this larger context too.

Be that as it may, the unruly scenes enacted by the members of the Samajwadi Party in the two Houses of Parliament in the wake of the developments in Uttar Pradesh too need to be condemned. While the Samajwadi Party MPs were justified in raising the developments in the State, the manner in which they went about doing that was indeed unseemly. By raising their decibel levels and indulging in such acts as was done by the party MP, Akilesh Singh, on the floor of the Lok Sabha (for which he was admonished) and by disrupting the conduct of the Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha, the party's MPs are only weakening their cause. Such behaviour within Parliament or any State Legislature offends both decency and democratic values.

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