Rajyasabha Reforms are the need of the country!
Rajyasabha Reforms are the need of the country!
After the GST Bill failed to make its way through the Rajya Sabha, the irked FM Arun Jaitley last week highlighted the role of the Rajya Sabha, stating it is the time to evaluate if an 'indirectly-elected' Upper house can halt reforms approved by the 'directly-elected' Lower House. It is a major controversial issue as the important bills require approval from the Upper House to become a mandate. Analyzing the past performance, do you think Rajyasabha Reforms are the need of the country?
Yes
- The failure of Upper House to approve the GST Bill in the recently concluded parliamentary session proves that India is getting highly polarized between the developers and obstructers.
- The individual goals obstruct a highly needed mandate. Therefore, there is a need to establish rules as the British did to implement legislative sanctions.
- Another important factor is waste of time. There is a need to establish a fast track methodology to reach unanimous decisions so that economy can move forward on the growth path.
- The Upper House has turned into a tool for offering patronage. The smooth functioning is weighed down by other deficiencies like indiscipline, unwanted ruckus and absenteeism.
- There is a need to have more responsible independent members who can contribute and bring a changed perspective to the functioning of the upper house. Also, they should not be biased in terms of party-political considerations.
No
- The FM has perhaps forgotten that this indirectly elected house was established to avoid the centre from imposing its supremacy on the states. The present structure gives states an opportunity to express their opinion on key matters.
- The Upper House has twelve independent members nominated by Indian President. These experts come from different fields including social services, science, literature and art. It shows in-depth diversity in the structure that in anyways is beneficial for the nation.
- India is a democratic nation and therefore, any reforms that hurt the parliamentary democracy should be null and void.
- There is a reason for delays in approval of major bills. The house is created to make the justified decisions, and not the hasty decisions.
- If centre only has to control all the things, then why at the first place the Upper House was formed.
Conclusion
As federalism is deep-rooted in India and plays out in different ways, the Upper House too needs to reflect the views and divisions on the same criteria by its unique nature of party-political hegemony. As India starts to discuss and introduce the next-gen of key economic reforms and as the deep-seated issues of market, property rights, human rights and redistribution reforms rule the political background, there is a need of more responsible members to take the nation on growth path. In the absence of accountability, no matter how many times new reforms are established, nothing is really going to work.
Discussion
- RE: Rajyasabha Reforms are the need of the country! -Deepa Kaushik (08/24/15)
- Upper House of the Parliament has been created with some purpose the most importantly to avoid the Supremacyof the centre which is elected with full majority. There can be instances when The Government forms with full supreme majority without the requirement for coalition government. In these scenario when the opposition is not enough strong in number and power, the centre might pass the bill unopposed.
This would be very similar to autocratic rule rather than a democratic set-up, if there is no opposition. Opposition holds a important role in democratic type of Governance. It paves way to different opinion, the pros and cons regarding the specific mandate under discussion. This healthy discussion often opens up many loopholes in the proposed bill which might have otherwise been hushed up by the Centre in majority.
In all those instances when thelower house isunable to comeup with the efficient dicussion before passing a bill, Rajya Sabha plays its crucial role. It helps to explore more refined intricacies in the proposed policy. These hidden details should ideally be discussed before the conversion of the proposal to a law. Rajya Sabha has to be there to clearly place the projects before the commonman.
Correctly said, if we need not consider Rajya Sabha just for the reason that it is not directly elected, the the upper house would not have been created in first place. Again, it is very much evident that the reason for which the Upper House was created is prevailing evennow and the requirement would always remain for the gnerations to come.
