Lying your way to the House

If the founding fathers did not include a statute barring defeated Lok Sabha candidates to get into the Rajya Sabha, it was not because they supported such a move. A more likely explanation is that they did not foresee that the rot would runso deep.

The people’s mandate is supreme in democracy. Rehabilitating the “rejects,” and that too at the first available opportunity, shows how contemptuous political parties are to the people’s mandate. There was a time when P. V. Narasimha Rao’s Cabinet had more Rajya Sabha members in it than those from the Lok Sabha. It wasn’t always like this.

In the first three parliaments, rarely did a defeated leader even remotely thought of getting into the Rajya Sabha. The Rajya Sabha was meant to be a forum for those party faithfuls who generally stay away from electoral politics and whose expertise and experience contribute to the law-making process in parliament.

Veteran socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia had been defeated several times in parliamentary elections before his only victory in 1963. Again and again, he went back to the same electorate and won them over finally. He never short-circuited his way into Parliament.

As early as 1978, Indira Gandhi chose to enter the Lok Sabha through a byelectionmore than a year after her defeat, but resisted party pressure to get into the Rajya Sabha. In 1985, then Janata Party President Chandra Shekhar turned down his Karnataka unit’s request to enter the Rajya Sabha from there after his defeat in the Lok Sabha from Ballia.

And it was by getting into the Rajya Sabha instead of contesting a Lok Sabha byelection as prime minister that H. D. Deve Gowda made a major compromise on the representative character of democracy. For the first time, the leader of the House of the Lok Sabha was from the Rajya Sabha and not someone directly elected by the people. It was no surprise then that I K Gujral had Gowda’s precedence to follow and became the PM as a Rajya Sabha member.

So today, a defeat or a bleak prospect for the Lok Sabha has ceased to be a disqualification in any form for membership to the Rajya Sabha. Sonia Gandhi’s first act as Congress president was to nominate Oscar Fernandes and Santosh Mohan Deb for the Rajya Sabha, days after their defeat in the Lok Sabhaelections.

The BJP is significantly silent on the Rajya Sabha election issue: both on the question of giving false addresses to get into Rajya Sabha or rewarding Lok Sabha rejects with a Rajya Sabha nomination.

It has always followed the practice of sending its top leaders to the Upper House even after their defeat in the Lok Sabha elections. So in 1985 it was Vajpayee himself who got into the Rajya Sabha after his defeat in Gwalior. And now Jaswant Singh (who lost from Chittorgarh) and Pramod Mahajan (from Mumbai) are on their way.

One consolation the moralists in the BJP may seek is from the fact that Jaswant and Mahajan will not have to begin with a lie. They will come to the Rajya Sabha from their respective states, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, without having to give a “false address” as proof of residence.

Look at some of the other luminaries having to give a false address. Delhi’s Arun Shourie will give a Lucknow address. Kapil Sibbal, the veteran lawyer and a Congress-RJD nominee, will begiving a Patna address. Manmohan Singh who has now got his own address in Assam entered the Rajya Sabha from the state first in 1991 as `C/O Mrs Hiteshwar Saikia’.

T. N. Seshan, as Chief Election Commissioner, had made some noises about political parties playing with the sanctity of Rajya Sabha elections, mainly by giving false addresses for nomination process. But the matter was never pursued seriously and ended there.

Electoral reforms is one crucial issue which, like corruption in public life, has been raised time and again. The EC has responded to some extent but that’s largely been a knee-jerk reaction: individual expense ceilings for Lok Sabha and Assembly elections have been raised and moves to discourage non-serious candidates have been taken. The government also seems to be close to formalising state funding of elections.

But all this overlooks one main point. That you shouldn’t tell a lie and that you should respect the people’s mandate are two things which cannot be enforced by law. For thisdepends on the attitude of political parties rather than on provisions of the law. Which means the rot is going to stay for quite a long time.