India - Parliament had record low of 32 sittings in '08

Bhaskar Roy

NEW DELHI: The telltale signs of Parliament's decline have been visible for a while — now they stare you in the face. Till date, Parliament has met f
or just 32 days this year, the lowest in its history.

This is shocking considering that in 1956, the Lok Sabha met for a record 151 days. And as years have passed, and issues become more complicated for the country, our legislators appear to be taking less and less interest in Parliament.

Even if Parliament sits for a couple of more weeks in the last two months of the year, 2008 will go down in history as the year that saw the shortest duration of business in Parliament. This, at a time when issues have become economically and politically graver, and the need for our MPs to put their minds together to find a national consensus to these is being felt by all.

In the early years, Parliament — as figures show — functioned far more robustly. From 1952, the year the Lok Sabha was constituted, Parliament met for more than 100 days every year. In 1953 and 1954, it met for 137 days each. Even during the Emergency year of 1976, it met 98 times. The real decline began in 1999 when the Lok Sabha had only 51 sittings. And the trend has persisted since then.

The trend of decline in the number of sittings of Parliament was a disease that afflicted the state assemblies first. Haryana, Goa and some of the North-Eastern states were notorious for skirting the assembly. In presiding officers' conferences, the issue has come up again and again.

Now the virus seems to have struck Parliament. This has happened despite a political consensus that Parliament should meet for a minimum of 100 days in a year.

Given the current trend, this won't be achieved this year. Experts believe that the alarm bell should be pressed for the largescale "infiltration" of criminal elements into Parliament.

Expert Subhash Kashyap says that the decline of the LS has happened not just because of the fewer number of days it has met to transact business and legislate, but also because of the changing House composition. He points out that 125 MPs in the present LS have criminal backgrounds.