We claim ourselves to be the largest democracy in the world. Democracy do not mean just electing MPs, some of whom become Ministers and do exactly what they please. It means that the elected representatives meet in the august house of Parliament regularly, discuss and debate issues of national importance and put their collective wisdom into taking appropriate decisions through law making.
Our Parliament normally sits thrice a year. The budget session in February, the monsoon session in June and the winter session in November. But has anyone noticed that the Parliament has not had a proper sitting for a long time?
When the Left parties withdrew the support and opposed the N-deal, the Government hastily called a brief session during monsoon to get the confidence vote and promptly adjourned the house sine die. Maybe for the first time in the history of modern india (barring the emergency perios) the monsoon session has not been held. This also means that the Parliament is not due to meet till the winter session in November, a long gap of 7 months!
So many issues of critical nature has come up during the period,
- Global Financial meltdown
- High inflation which has affected the common man badly
- Stagnant economic growth
- Liquidity bottlenecks
- Monsoon failure in many parts of the country
- The atrocious levels of power cuts in Tamil Nadu
- Stock market crashing
- N-Deal
- Critical internal security resulting from terrorist attacks and religious riots
- Jammu riots and the resultant Kashmir turmoil
- Singur/Nano issue
...................the list is endless.
And what does the lawmakers in general and the ruling UPA in particular do. They dont convene the Parliament, but instead play hookey. Even the opposition is not clamouring for a Parliament session.
This does not augur well for our democracy.
