New allowances for lawmakers

It is indeed difficult to explain why lack of quorum should have been obstructing the proceedings of the House quite often when, ironically, the presence of only 60 members is needed out of 300 to form a quorum. Not long ago, statistics on the huge financial losses incurred by the government owing to the quorum crisis were carried by the press.

The MPs are given the facility of buying duty-free cars. But didn't some of them sell off such cars in the past and, in some cases, even the permits for import? Then a section of them have pushed the telephone bill default culture on to a scandalous level. By doing so, they surely did not set examples worth emulating.

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Then comes the question of how committed many of the MPs are to the constituencies they represent. Have they given proof of the representational quality that should be an essential trait of an elected public office?

So, what we believe is that increased perks should be tagged to a performance expectations chart. Unless the distribution of benefits is performance-oriented the argument of this being need-based cannot hold good.

We would like to raise two relevant points about the performance, role and leadership expected of the lawmakers. First, as public representatives they should be guided by their conscience, not by party dictates alone. Second, Opposition MPs are getting a kind of step-motherly treatment in matters relating to allotment or similar benefits. That amounts to punishing the whole constituency that voted for a particular candidate. The idea of not giving the opposition MPs their due is extended a bit too far when they are not allowed into various local bodies and committees, thus depriving them of performing to the best of their potential.

The lawmakers assess, evaluate and criticise the performance of government functionaries as a matter of right in their capacity as public representatives. But people do not expect them to be totally oblivious of their own performance.