The Hindu : Karnataka News : Governor regrets fall in respect for legislators

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Friday, Jul 23, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Governor regrets fall in respect for legislators

By Our Staff Reporter

The Governor, T.N. Chaturvedi, flanked by the acting Chairman of the Legislative Council, V.R. Sudarshan, and the Assembly Speaker, Krishna, leaving the Council Hall after addressing the Council members on the completion of 100th session of the House in Bangalore on Thursday. — Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

BANGALORE, JULY 22. The Governor, T.N. Chaturvedi, has regretted the decline in the respect commanded by legislators and the cynicism in the public mind about the political system.

He was addressing the historic 101st session of the Legislative Council, the oldest second chamber of the legislature in the country. The Council, which has completed 100 sessions since 1952, was founded in 1907 in the princely State of Mysore as the Mysore Legislative Council when Krishraja Wodeyar IV was the Maharaja and Vishwanath Patankar Madhava Rao was the Dewan. The princely State established the Mysore Representative Assembly, the oldest of its kind in the country, 26 years earlier in 1881.

The Governor said, "It is sad to observe that the public respect for legislators and the political system is on the decline. There is some kind of cynicism which we must strive consciously to dispel through work and exemplary conduct and through proper public relations." Cynicism would lead to disenchantment with the political system and it was dangerous for democracy, he warned. "Legislators are not only the much-valued repository of authority and power ... , but also custodians of the future of democracy in India for which millions struggled and sacrificed and which we so lovingly claim to cherish today."

The Governor reminded the legislators that a representative of the people lived in a glasshouse and the people and the press were critically watchful of their conduct, both within the House and outside. The ethical aspects of the work and conduct of public representatives were of paramount importance. The legislators should be cognisant of the age-old truth that it was character that added lustre to capability and enhanced it.

Mr. Chaturvedi called upon the legislators to cultivate the habit of comprehending the aspirations and obligations of the Constitution in letter and spirit, if they were to really serve the people and justify their actions in the eyes of the public and their conscience.

Mr. Chaturvedi hoped that he was wrong that the members of the Council were treated in the same manner as members of the Assembly.

There should be no scope for any such doubt. Both the Houses were co-equal with such responsibilities and relationships as prescribed by the Constitution which was focused on harmonious, cooperative and purposive working of the legislative wing of the State for the good of the people.

Hailing the rich democratic traditions of the State, the Governor said that most provisions of the Government of Mysore Act, 1940, which conferred certain privileges on the members including the freedom of speech during deliberations, were similar to the ones extended under the Government of India Act, 1935.

The institution, he said, was regarded as very progressive and much ahead of the contemporary political developments elsewhere. The progress and evolution of the legislative institutions in Karnataka had kept pace with the different stages of development at the national level and it went to the credit of the powers that be of the past for bringing about appropriate changes at the right time. Mr. Chaturvedi said that in 1923 itself, "special interests" such as the University of Mysore, commerce and trade, planters and labour were given representation in the Council.

Seats were reserved for Muslims, Christians and the depressed classes, and the Government nominated them, if they were not elected.

The Governor entered the ornate chamber of the Council in the Vidhana Soudha through the central door which is rarely used.

It was only for the third time that it had been kept open. The last occasion was in 1992 when the then Governor, Khurshed Alam Khan, entered through that door to unveil the portrait of M. Visvesvaraya.

Many legislators were unhappy that the public gallery was almost vacant.

They felt that people who contributed richly to the democratic traditions of the State from different walks of life and senior journalists who had covered the proceedings of the House in the early decades could have been invited for the function.

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