The new tradition of indulging in allegations and counter-allegations instead of constructive criticism, creating stalemate in the House in a planned manner, is not appropriate for parliamentary democracy, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla said in Gandhinagar on Wednesday. The Lok Sabha Speaker was inaugurating an orientation programme for MLAs in the Gujarat Assembly. Speaker of Gujarat Assembly Shankar Chaudhary, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, Deputy Speaker of Assembly Jetha Bharvad and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Rushikesh Patel were also present. The two-day orientation programme has been organised by Parliamentary Research and Training Institute for Democracies (PRIDE), Lok Sabha Secretariat, in coordination with the Gujarat Legislative Assembly Secretariat. Governor Acharya Devvrat will deliver the valedictory address at the concluding session on Thursday. Addressing the audience, Birla said, “In a democracy, criticism is a Shuddhi Yagna. However, nowadays, a new tradition has started in (parliament and assembly) Houses of leveling allegations and counter allegations instead of doing (constructive) criticism. which is not appropriate for the constitutional democracy of the country.” “Nowadays, a new style has started — to bring stalemate in the House in a planned manner. It is not a good tradition for parliamentary democracy,” Birla said, adding that parliamentary institutes should be a centre of criticism, but not of allegations and counter allegations. The declining level of discussion in the Houses and the decline in dignity of discussions is a matter of concern, Birla said and asked the legislators to indulge in quality discussion and debates in the House. “No MP or MLA can become a leader merely by shouting slogans and creating stalemate in the House. All the leaders from legislative assemblies and parliament have become the same through quality discussions and dialogues,” Birla said. Later, addressing a press conference, Birla said that following the last convention of presiding officers of the country, the Lok Sabha is working on making model procedures for bringing uniform rules in all the assemblies. “However, all the assemblies are autonomous and have the right to frame their own rules. We will form a model procedure. Any assembly can adopt it. We have made an attempt to bring uniformity in the procedure for the legislative assemblies. We are trying to make model by-laws by March and send it to all the state legislative assemblies.” Birla was also asked to comment on the tradition prevailing in the Gujarat Assembly where the reports of Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) and commissions appointed by the state government on sensitive issues are tabled in the House on the last day of the Assembly session because of which no discussion is possible on the same. In reply, he said, “Each state legislative assembly has its own rules and procedures. If you ask me (anything) about Lok Sabha, I can answer on that.” Birla was also asked about live broadcast of sessions of Gujarat Assembly that was discontinued since 1995. When asked whether the live broadcast of the Gujarat Assembly proceedings should be done or not, Birla said, “In all the state legislative assemblies, there are different rules. At some places, there is live (broadcast), at some it is not. All the legislative assemblies are autonomous.” Addressing the session, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel said that the objective of the programme is to provide details of the parliamentary rules and procedures to the MLAs of the 15th Gujarat assembly. With those details, he added, the MLAs will be able to perform better and help the government in resolving people’s issues. Gujarat Assembly Speaker Shankar Chaudhary said that he conceptualised this programme after becoming the Speaker when he started reading and getting in-depth knowledge of the House rules and proceedings. As part of the orientation programme, the MLAs will be given training on how to be an effective legislator, committee system and parliamentary questions, budgetary process, legislative process, India’s presidency in G-20, procedural devices to raise matters of urgent public importance in the House, functioning of a legislature: do’s and don’ts, parliamentary privileges and ethics, and importance of constitutional bodies in a democracy.
