Vice President of India M Venkaiah Naidu has come up with a charter for effective functioning of Parliament and state legislatures. He brought this before the politicians and political parties while delivering the first ‘Arun Jaitely Memorial Lecture on Strengthening of Parliamentary Institutions in the Country.
In the speech, he said that the political parties should ensure that at least fifty per cent of their legislators participate in the proceedings of the Houses. Naidu made this suggestion in the context of frequent adjournments due to lack of quorum of the required presence of 10% of the strength of the Houses. The Vice President also asked to review the Anti Defection Law to correct the grey areas.
He also said that there should be adequate presence of legislators in the Department Related Standing Committees and that he would discuss with Lok Sabha Speaker regarding the measures for effective functioning of these committees.
Naidu also called for a detailed pre and post Legislative Impact Assessment. He noted that all the legislative proposals should incorporate detailed account of administrative, economic, social and environmental impact.
The Vice president also mentioned that the present system of ‘First Pass The Post (FPTP)’ of electing people’s representatives was defective in the sense that most of the elected ones have substantially less than 50 per cent of the support of the voters.
Another point that he made was that the influence of caste, community, religion and region in influencing voting should be completely stamped out.
Naidu also wanted the Opposition to be more constructive and responsible in the House during debates and discussions. He also said that the government should be responsive to the concerns raised by the opposition.
