Stop the tamasha over office of profit

[Praba]

The disqualification of Jaya Bachchan from the membership of Rajya Sabha for occupying the Uttar Pradesh Film Development Council as its chairperson has triggered a political crisis in the country. This has brought Article 102 (1a) of the constitution into the limelight once again.

Article 102 (1a) of the constitution prohibits members of parliament from holding any office of profit. Knowing well the consequences of this rule, the UPA government planned to promulgate an ordinance overnight to exempt the National Advisory Council from the purview of this constitutional requirement. The biggest blunder in this issue was to adjourn the parliament sine die to facilitate an ordinance route to save the Congress MPs and its alliance members of parliament from falling victim to the disqualification rule. The entire opposition has risen against this backdoor tactic of Manmohan Singh government.

The resignation of Sonia Gandhi from Lok Sabha as M.P and from the National Advisory Council as its chairperson yesterday has created a chain reaction among her sycophants and tension in the opposition circles. To emulate their President numerous Congress leaders are putting in their papers to quit from parliament, legislatures and honorary office holdings. Karan Singh was the first one to follow the footsteps of Sonia. Jairam Ramesh, Gurudas Kamat, T. Subbirami Reddy and many others are enthusiastic about doing the same.

Imagine bye-elections in 50 parliamentary constituencies and over 200 assembly constituencies after this drama of resignations! The amount of public money to be spent in this fiasco will be more than Rs. 50 crores which can be better utilized for educating 5 million out of school children in the backwards areas.

Why is there is so much hooplah about holding for profit office if a person is a Member of Parliament or legislature? Is this a Practical proposition? After all, law and constitutional rules can be bent according to the whims and fancies of the ruling party! If the Congress party had majority on its own it could have amended the law to free the NAC from office of profit rule. It is high time for India to get out of the fake moral and pseudo ethical framework.

If there is a rule to allow our parliamentarians to enjoy profit legally their involvement in illegal activities like taking money for raising questions and underground linkages may be minimized. Especially for the MPs from poor economic background, bundles of currency notes are tempting. To give them enough honour and monetary benefits, parliament should allow them to make required earning. So there is no harm in them accepting for profit offices. The rule should prescribe the maximum number limit. It would be better for the parliament and people to fix maximum two for profit offices for each parliamentarian. This will also help them to concentrate in their constituencies and parliament rather than shuttling between one trust meeting and the other. There is a steady decline in the attendance in parliamentary sessions. Most of the MPs come to Delhi to do their personal business than attending the debates and taking part seriously in parliamentary matters. To revive their interest in nation building and better working of our parliamentary democracy it is important to remove the hassles like for profit offices.

India constitution blindly follows certain archaic and impossible ideas even today. Similarly there is a prohibition on for profit educational institutions. Who can run schools and colleges without making profit? To make law people friendly it is important to define them clearly and viably. If there was a review on obsolete constitutional provisions, the growth rate of India could have surpassed China umpteen numbers of time in every field.

The present provision should be amended to prevent members of parliament from occupying non-legislative businesses like cricket control boards, Rajiv Gandhi memorial trust, Indian Council for Cultural Relations and other socio-cultural organizations. The involvement of politicians in these forums really lowers its professional standards. One big service that our politicians can do to our nation is to keep themselves away from sports, cultural and social institutions to allow its organic growth.