The Vice President of India and the Chairman, Rajya Sabha, M. Venkaiah Naidu has called upon all political parties to incorporate a code of conduct for people’s representatives, including MPs and MLAs, in their election manifestos.The code of conduct should include stipulations that the members would not enter the well of the house, nor resort to sloganeering and disruptions or any other unruly behavior such as tearing papers and throwing them in the House.Shri Naidu, who hosted a lunch to senior officials of Rajya Sabha and media persons at Upa Rashtrapati Bhawan, here today, expressed his happiness over the productive session of the just concluded session of Parliament. He said that Rajya Sabha achieved a history of sorts in the number of questions raised and answered, special mentions and zero hour mentions during the session.“With 32 bills passed during the 35 sittings of the recently concluded Rajya Sabha session, this has been the best in the last 17 years in terms of legislative output,” he added.The Vice President said that he was sure that the leadership and MPs of all political parties would appreciate the significance of functional Parliament and would maintain the positive momentum of the just concluded session.
The Rajya Sabha Chairman said that he has always been emphasizing the need for members to discuss, debate and decide and not resort to disruptions and obstructions in Parliament and Legislatures as people were becoming restless over such behaviour.Shri Naidu also expressed concern over the tendency of the opposition parties to boycott the legislature in some states, while in certain other instances the opposition was sent out. In some states, the assembly was meeting for very few days, while there was continuous disruption in some others.The Vice President appealed to all political parties to see that Parliament and Legislatures function effectively and also to ensure that the quality of debates was raised. He said “there is a feeling among the people that the level of public discourse is going down.”Pointing out that political parties were only rivals and not enemies, he was of the firm opinion that the ruling and the opposition parties should interact more frequently to ensure smooth conduct of both Parliament and legislatures.Observing that Parliamentary democracy was all about ensuring governance through accountability to the people, Shri Naidu described as “Legislative, Deliberative and Accountability” the three important functions of legislatures. “We are supposed to make necessary legislations for the betterment of the country and the people, take up and deliberate on issues of public importance and ensure the accountability of the government of the day”.