I admire a personality like Yogi Adityanath, and I have also had the pleasure of sitting one row behind him in the Lok Sabha. He occupied the seat that was earlier occupied by PA Sangma. Yogiji, with his strength and virulence is some kind of an inspiration to me personally.
I was very happy when I heard that he had been nominated the new Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s supreme leaders. Now, Yogiji has to fight for an assembly seat within 6 months of taking oath as Chief Minister because that is the eligibility requirement under the Indian Constitution.
Coming to technicalities, I was a little shaken the other day, the day the Finance Bill, 2017, was being debated in the Lok Sabha. Yogi Adityanath in his elegant saffron dress walked into the House and took his usual seat. When he entered the Lok Sabha, the Speaker welcomed Adityanathji by name.
Admittedly, this is not the usual practice followed in the case of mere four-time MPs like me. I am, after all, a common mortal. More so in my political life. But this was done in Yogiji’s case because he had already taken oath as the Chief Minister of the biggest state in the Union of India.
When Yogiji was asked by the Speaker to deliver his speech, I must admit I was not only taken aback but a wee bit disappointed too. In reality, burly and powerful BJP MPs virtually pushed me out to sit behind the speaking Yogi so that their faces would be visible to the whole nation on the Lok Sabha TV channel.
Later on, interestingly, I was told that other TV channels, which were not covering important aspects of the finance bill discussion, were however covering Lok Sabha proceedings live for only those brief historic moments of Adityanath’s speech.
The sum total of which was that Yogiji was younger by a year to Rahulji and elder by a year to Akhileshji. Implying that he was ‘sandwiched’! I felt miserable, first because my face wasn’t in the frame and second, I was highly disturbed that the occasion was to mark a political event that should not have taken place at all.
Yogi Adityanath’s entry into the Lok Sabha on Tuesday 21 March, 2017, reminded me of a very sad personal political event of my life. I was reminded of the entry into Lok Sabha of Girdhar Gamang, a Lok Sabha MP from Orissa who had come back after taking oath as Chief Minister of Orissa, to file his resignation from membership of the Parliament.
Prior to his resignation, he entered the Lok Sabha on the eventful day of 17 April, 1999. This was the historic day when the 13 months old BJP-led Atal Bihari Vajpeyee government faced a vote of confidence. As most who take interest in the history of Indian Parliamentary democracy would remember, the Vajpeyee government was defeated by One Single Vote.
For this very reason, every section of Indian society condemned Girdhar Gamang as well as the Sonia Gandhi led Congress for committing a highly objectionable and unethical anti-democracy action.
Personally, I was sad because that was my first time in Lok Sabha and I had very little experience as well as hardly any time to nurse my constituency. Those were the days when the office of profit mania had not set in. Now with the office of profit getting to be a huge issue, Yogi Adityanath’s speech in the LS on 21 March also raised questions of propriety in my mind.
Since he had obviously not resigned from the membership of LS till then, he was permitted by the Hon’ble Speaker herself to give a speech. That also meant his salary would be calculated as also his Daily Allowance for that day of his presence in Lok Sabha.
Juxtapose this with a person who has the enviable advantage of having taken oath as CM of Uttar Pradesh on 19 March 2017, that implies that the meter for the salary of the CM would have started ticking on that day onwards. Sadly, this may be construed by some as violation of Office of Profit Rules.
I sometimes wonder why we, supposedly the responsible elected representatives of the people prefer to blatantly violate norms and rules and behave as if they never existed in the first place. This kind of an attitude prompts many leaders to make public display of either their bravado or insecurities.
By insecurities I am pointing at the manner in which the Congress MP from Amritsar, Capt. Amrinder Singh fought from two assembly constituencies in Punjab recently — Lambi and Patiala. Furthermore, and again very unfortunately, this kind of display of insecurities is not limited to this gentleman in Punjab. Our most revered Prime Minister Damodardass Modiji also fought from Vadodara (Gujarat) and Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) in 2014 elections.
In 1999 general elections, Sonia Gandhi contested elections from both Bellary (Karnataka) and Rae Bareli (Uttar Pradesh). Coming back to Uttar Pradesh, in 2014 general elections we saw Mulayam Singh Yadav contest from Azamgarh as well as Mainpuri constituencies. To my mind, such actions by the high and mighty prove that either they are not really high and mighty or they do not trust their constituents enough.
I have no problems if these block-buster leaders run from multiple constituencies in the same election. My problem arises when I realise that they will be able to retain only one constituency which will result in a by-election, which in turn will result in more expenditure with taxpayers’ money.
For me, poll reforms should never include state funding. That will facilitate big parties to throttle smaller organizations that may truly be representative of public opinions. Instead, poll reforms could start by addressing issues such as more comfort for the voter standing in queue at the booth as also stopping these leaders contesting multiple constituencies and thereby squandering public money among other relevant things.