MLAs quitting in last year of term unethical : Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao

 MLAs quitting in last year of term unethical

Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao

The Pioneer (26-08-2022)

(The Telangana by-poll for Munugodu seat when Assembly polls are less than a year away defies logic-Editor).

Yet another Assembly by-election in Telangana is in the offing. When Assembly elections are due in Telangana in about a year from now, Munugodu legislative constituency MLA resigned, causing perhaps an expensive by-poll on the exchequer, as well as on the contesting candidates and political parties. For reasons best known to them, some legislators in the recent past are choosing to resign from their respective seats at will and pleasure before completion of their terms and quit the party from which they were elected.

Political analysts term this trend as attempts to gain personal political benefit rather for any ideological preferences. This leads to a byelection for the seat vacated and sometimes a few months before the completion of tenure of legislature. If byelection is delayed, the elected MLA will be hardly left with six months or less to serve and may not even get a chance to sit in the House.

The legislator who resorts to resignation does not sense that it is a rare privilege and honor bestowed on him by the voters to sit in the prestigious legislative Assembly for a period of five years and resigning before completion of tenure is unethical, illogical and shirking the responsibility. It has also become a known practice that the individual who vacates the seat contests again on a different party ticket.

What is the rationale to resign and contest again is an unanswered question. Some national parties admit them overnight and offer party tickets with a one-point agenda of defeating the opponent, generally of a popular regional party. The morals of earlier days to give tickets after a long wait are no longer observed.

An individual normally resigns to a position he or she is holding in order to take a more challenging assignment and not for an equal or lower than the present one. Lack of opportunities for advancement and feeling disrespected in the present position are also the reasons for tendering resignation. This in effect is not happening in the resignations of the majority of legislators of late. Resigning in a professional and polite way on good terms rather than blaming the organization that he or she is leaving often in unparliamentary language has also become an unhealthy feature which is highly deplorable.

Unfortunately, the majority of legislators who resort to resignation give reasons which are not palatable. For instance, differences with the party president or not being placed in a high position in the party, or not given a minister’s berth or not getting an appointment with top leaders or not being recognized, etc., are not valid reasons.

In January, 2013, in the united Andhra Pradesh Assembly, 10 TRS MLAs quit the Assembly and not the party, protesting against the terms of reference (ToR) of the Sri Krishna Committee. The move followed the call of the all-party Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC) to legislators from Telangana to submit their resignations en masse, rejecting the ToR to mount pressure on the Centre for taking immediate steps for the formation of Telangana. The Speaker accepted the resignations.

Five YSR Congress Party MPs resigned in April 2018 over the failure of the Centre to grant Special Category Status to Andhra Pradesh. These were examples of resignations for a cause and not for individual political gains. One of the best examples is that of Neelam Sanjiva Reddy who resigned twice in 1969 and 1977 as an MP to contest as President of India; that was a challenging assignment, once as congress candidate and afterwards as a consensus candidate.

India models its democracy in Britain. Resignation from the House of Commons has never been allowed in Britain in theory. Technically Members of Parliament sitting in the House of Commons are not permitted to resign from their seats but can only be disqualified or lose an election for which there is a well laid down procedure.

To circumvent this, MPs who wish to step down are instead appointed to an ‘Office of profit under the Crown’, which disqualifies them from sitting in Parliament. For this purpose, a legal fiction is maintained where two unpaid offices are considered to be offices of profit: Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds, and Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of North stead.

The US Constitution explicitly provides for the resignation of senators, but, curiously, it does not say anything about resigning from the House of Representatives. If a vacancy occurs due to a senator’s death, resignation, or expulsion, state legislatures empower the Governor to appoint a replacement to complete the term or to hold office until a special election can take place. The Governor of the represented state may immediately appoint a successor. Since special elections cost taxpayers, activists even suggested that the retiring member should cover the costs of the election.

Every rule of law can be traced to a statute or a judicial decision, but conventions cannot be traced to any particular regulation. There are clear consequences for a violation of a rule of law, but a breach of a convention attracts no consequence. A rule of law can be amended but a convention cannot be amended. Although there are conventions in the society, what determines whether a thing is properly done or not is not the convention but the prevailing rule of law as regards that subject matter.

The constitutional structure of India is based largely on the Westminster model of parliamentary system. Indian and the UK systems of traditions, conventions and procedures in a way are similar since both the countries follow parliamentary form of democracy. While India has adopted most of the rules, regulations and conventions of the United Kingdom Parliament, it has failed to follow the spirit and the basic tenets of constitutional morality and propriety of an elected member resigning his post in the middle of his term.

There is, however, always something new about Westminster and, hence, it is something that might be a good idea to adopt in India. Unfortunately, the conventions guiding resignations of lawmakers are not properly spelt out yet.

In the election law as it stands now in India, there is no bar on a lawmaker resigning his or her seat before completion of tenure of Assembly or Lok Sabha and then contesting the byelection to fill up the vacancy caused by his or her resignation. It is high time that in India frequent resignations of legislators and Parliament members purely to gain political interests and without any ideological compulsions be avoided either by law on the British model or by convention.

This not only puts an end to political hopping by those who frequently change parties but also helps in doing away with huge costs that are incurred for the frequent elections. Alternatively, it may be considered to empower the Speaker to appoint a replacement to complete the term of the legislator who resigned. Let the law also be amended so as not to allow a person to contest from more than one constituency. Further, the Election Commission should consider the British practice of no-resignation of a person once elected.

But will this ever happen in our country, which is supposed to be the largest democracy but where all the democratic, ethical and moral norms are slowly and steadily thrown to the winds?

(The author is Chief Public Relations Officer to Chief Minister, Telangana)