By Our Special Correspondent
Shillong: A discerning visitor from Delhi who happened to visit the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly recently while the Assembly session was on, has come up with interesting vignettes of what should actually happen in a modern legislature in the 21st century. He felt rather lonely to be in the visitors hence felt that high school and college students by turn should be invited to attend the sessions. He said that traditional heads, members of ADCs, prominent citizens and others to should be invited since the visitor’s gallery and the other galleries are empty
He suggested that the walls of the Assembly House be painted with traditional motifs. “The Assembly should have a large digital display that updates every minute the cost of each day’s session so far, so legislators are less tempted to waste time. A large screen with a map of each MLA’s constituency should be put up so that as each MLA speaks, his constituency changes color on the map. At the end of each day and till the start of the next day, the total number of constituencies, whose members have spoken, can remain lit. This gives everyone a sense of how much of Meghalaya is covered in every day’s session,” the visitor remarked.
The visitor also suggested that as each member enters the assembly, a digital indicator can display the total number of legislators present for the day and each question asked can be flashed on the big screen, so that all can see. The written reply could also be shown on the screen. He felt that the national anthem could be played at the start of every day. “There’s no symbolism of Meghalaya on the wooden walls behind the speaker. The Assembly room could well have been in any state,” he remarked.
When this list was discussed with an MLA of the ruling party who wished to remain anonymous, he said the quality of debates left much to be desired. “You expect someone like Dr Donkupar Roy, leader of the opposition, to take up issues related to the state and not to be constituency-centric but if you have taken note of his questions, most of them are related to Shella his constituency,” the MLA said.
Ruing the fact that being in the ruling party gives him little opportunity to participate in the assembly debates he pointed out to a question put by one legislator about the vacancies in the Labour Department. The minister concerned replied that 50 vacancies exist of which only 9 were filled up. The MLA said this should have led to several supplementary queries as to why so many vacancies are remaining vacant. But the questioner stopped with the first question only.
“Most legislators don’t do their home work. They need to take notes of things they see happening which need correction. These could then be raised in the next Assembly session. But I guess this is asking too much from our legislators”, the MLA quipped, adding that MLAs need not wait for the Assembly session to raise issues about their constituencies since they visit the different departments and seek accountability on pending water supply schemes and road projects or other such matters.
The MLA also lamented that because most minister are not equal to the task and have no ready answers to queries it is the chief minister who has to bail them out time and again. He however, felt that often MLAs try to score brownie points by waylaying the Government instead of pointing things out in a constructive manner.