Editorial
Truant MPs
How are they different from boycotters?
SPEAKER Abdul Hamid could not hide his annoyance and indignation at the absence of a large number of MPs in the JS session on Sunday, which forced him to postpone the scheduled discussion on the draft of the PRSP.
It is easy to see the Speaker's point, for there was no way for him to accept such a sparsely populated JS session, where barely one fifth of the seats in the first three rows were occupied by the lawmakers! And this happened when the PRSP, an issue high on the government's agenda, was supposed to be the focal point of discussion.
It has transpired that the Honourable MPs were busy elsewhere. That however does not sound convincing, if only because such absence from the House is nothing new. The noticeable development, if any, is that it was carried a bit too far on this occasion. The MPs have certainly failed to do justice to their avowed position of serving the nation through parliament.
The ruling party has blamed the opposition many, many times for rendering parliament non-functional through boycotts. And the loud fight between the treasury bench and the opposition over sharing of front row seats is still fresh in our memories. The opposition did not budge, while the ruling party made it clear that it won't concede anything. The result was a near stalemate. But what we watch now makes it pretty much clear that the sole objective was to prevail over political adversaries; making parliament functional was a matter of secondary or no importance. One might conclude rather logically that the ruling party did not retain control over the front row seats only to leave them empty. But what we witnessed on Sunday tells us a different story.
The opposition MPs might feel relieved to be out of focus as the ruling party itself is not doing its bit to keep parliament on track. But the truth of the matter is that those MPs are to blame equally for this poor JS show. One thing is very clear: all the lawmakers are enjoying the remunerations, perks and other facilities given to them for acting as lawmakers. If they fail to have time for performing their primary job, they are actually doing a disservice to the JS and the nation.
Even Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina sounded a bit lenient as she tried to explain the absence of a minister in the session. However, as the leader of the House she has to convince her party lawmakers that they have to give up this habit of not attending JS sessions.
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