Just when left-of-center liberals start to warm up to the idea of L.K. Advani as an alternate to hard core Hindu right-wing politicians, he shoots his mouth off proving that a leopard can never change its spots.
Out comes L.K. Advani with the brainwave that voters who do not vote in an election should be debarred from voting in the next election. In one swoop, he wants to disenfranchise anywhere between 20% (in Tamil Nadu) to 40% (in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh) of the eligible electorate on the flimsy excuse of voter apathy.
Apart from the thinking and intention behind such an idea, the question is whether he is willing to adopt the same standard for the political class Advani belongs to?
We have all been spectators over the last year or so of disruption of the Parliament for many reasons. The record speaks for itself.
The 15th Lok Sabha (2009-14) met for 357 days and 1,338 hours against an average of 600 days and 3,700 hours for the first three Lok Sabhas (1952-67). But that is only the first half of the story.
Not only the 15th Lok Sabha assembled for only half time of the first 3 Lok Sabhas, the productivity was almost half - at 61%. Here are the figures.
The 15th Lok Sabha has been the most disrupted ever with overall productivity being 61%. Only 13% of the time was spent on legislative business.
The MPs did not or could not vote on 74 major bills and 20 laws were passed within 5 minutes of being introduced. L.K. Advani (and his political cohorts) were not willing to vote on 74 bills, at the least, for whatever reason, but have no compunctions about asking for the public to vote for him (them) - to go back to the next Lok Sabha. Presumably they want to catch up with those 74 bills.
To add insult to the injury, his party colleague, Sushma Swaraj, who was the Leader of Opposition in the same Lok Sabha, said this on 22 Feb 2014, ‘BJP and its allies disrupted Parliament to expose the scams of government. The government wanted us to set them aside and let the Parliament go on, but we had to stall the Parliament.’
So the politicians can avoid voting for whatever reason they feel like, but the common citizen should be disenfranchised if he does not feel like voting for these self-serving hypocrites in an election.
Hey Ram!
(image courtesy Satish Acharya @ cartoonistsatish.blogspot.in)
The statistics regarding 15th Lok Sabha and Sushma Swaraj quoted from ToI article at:
[http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Sushma-Swaraj-blames-Congress-for-Parliament-disruptions/articleshow/30848433.cms]
Out comes L.K. Advani with the brainwave that voters who do not vote in an election should be debarred from voting in the next election. In one swoop, he wants to disenfranchise anywhere between 20% (in Tamil Nadu) to 40% (in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh) of the eligible electorate on the flimsy excuse of voter apathy.
Apart from the thinking and intention behind such an idea, the question is whether he is willing to adopt the same standard for the political class Advani belongs to?
We have all been spectators over the last year or so of disruption of the Parliament for many reasons. The record speaks for itself.
The 15th Lok Sabha (2009-14) met for 357 days and 1,338 hours against an average of 600 days and 3,700 hours for the first three Lok Sabhas (1952-67). But that is only the first half of the story.
Not only the 15th Lok Sabha assembled for only half time of the first 3 Lok Sabhas, the productivity was almost half - at 61%. Here are the figures.
The 15th Lok Sabha has been the most disrupted ever with overall productivity being 61%. Only 13% of the time was spent on legislative business.
The MPs did not or could not vote on 74 major bills and 20 laws were passed within 5 minutes of being introduced. L.K. Advani (and his political cohorts) were not willing to vote on 74 bills, at the least, for whatever reason, but have no compunctions about asking for the public to vote for him (them) - to go back to the next Lok Sabha. Presumably they want to catch up with those 74 bills.
To add insult to the injury, his party colleague, Sushma Swaraj, who was the Leader of Opposition in the same Lok Sabha, said this on 22 Feb 2014, ‘BJP and its allies disrupted Parliament to expose the scams of government. The government wanted us to set them aside and let the Parliament go on, but we had to stall the Parliament.’
So the politicians can avoid voting for whatever reason they feel like, but the common citizen should be disenfranchised if he does not feel like voting for these self-serving hypocrites in an election.
Hey Ram!
(image courtesy Satish Acharya @ cartoonistsatish.blogspot.in)
The statistics regarding 15th Lok Sabha and Sushma Swaraj quoted from ToI article at:
[http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Sushma-Swaraj-blames-Congress-for-Parliament-disruptions/articleshow/30848433.cms]
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