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| Let Omar restore dignity of legislators | | | If the legislators of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly on Tuesday staged a loud protest against what they called insulting behaviour of a senior bureaucrat against one MLA,Master Lal Chand of the BJP,it was not a rare or unprecedented incident.Yes,what was unprecedented was the way the MLAS belonging to the ruling coalition joined the the protest against the incident which was initially staged by the members belonging to the BJP,Panthers Party,the PDP and the JSM.But some among the ruling coalition realised the gravity of the incident which if left unattended could be repeated with them also.Hence they goaded the MLAs belonging to the ruling coalition to support the protest staged by the opposition MLAs against the incident.Well Lal Chand had repeated the charge twice on the floor of the Assembly.He had done it on Monday also but on Tuesday the entire opposition lent support to him which resulted in severe pandemonium and that too when the ruling
coalition MLAs,barring the ministers,joined the protesting opposition MLAs.Lal Chand was specific in his charge when he told the Assembly that he had gone to the Principal Secretary Health in connection with a problem connected with the constituency,Bani, which had elected him to the Assembly and he was shown the door by the bureaucrat,R.K.Jerath,by telling him to leave the room.
In fact the speaker of the Assembly was forced to adjourn the House and he had thought that he would be able to motivate the MLAs to return to the House after he assured them that he would first hear the other side also.But the MLAs refused to budge .They wanted action against the bureaucrat for insulting a member of the state Assembly.The speaker later referred the case to the privileges committee.The members of the committee had a couple sessions with Jerath and with Lal Chand.It is something else if the matter is sorted out between the two or the committee comes to the conclusion that Lal Chand's statement was mere exaggeration or it recommended action against Jerath.These are secondary issues.Primary issue is to issue guidelines on the protocol of the MLAs and their status vis-a-vis senior bureaucrats.No doubt MLAs can be semi-literate while the bureaucrats could be IAS and IPS but does that mean the MLAs have to remain
subservient to the bureaucrats or they should not think they were a shade above the senior Government functionaries in the civil secretariat or in the field offices.After all the MLAs are the representatives of the people.They represent the aspirations and interests of the people of their constituencies and hence they have to explore all the avenues for mitigating the difficulties and problems of the people of their respective Assembly segments without being slighted by the bureacrats for being in the opposition.Thank God the Assembly speaker has acted and he has recommended,on the basis of the r eport of the privileges committee,attachment of Jerath.Hope this decision will soften the attitude of the stiff-necked bureaucrats.
The way the MLAs from the ruling coalition sided with the opposition protest indicats that some MLAs belonging to the Congress and the National Conference too may have had to face the same situation that Lal Chand faced.It is a different thing that if the ruling coalition MLAs preferred to stomach the insults.One thing is possible.The MLA in question may have lost his cool because usually members of the state Assembly treat themselves above law and above decorum.Whatever may have happened is the outcome of "I care least" attitude having been demonstrated by the successive chief Ministers towards legislators except for Mufti Sayeed who had been usually courteous to the members of the state legislature.When Ghulam Nabi Azad was the Chief Minister he had issued an instruction under which MLAs were not allowed to enter into the civil secretariat before 3 PM.This way they had been equated with common people.That should have been a
sufficient
hint for the bureaucrats to avoid giving any VIP treatment to the representatives of people.No doubt Azad had an argument while issuing such instructions.He had been told that legislators usually keep on roaming between one room to the other which affected the work culture in the civil secretariat.This argument can be debatable.It is time for Omar Abdullah to act fast and ensure that Lal Chand incident was never repeated.His role will be appreciated if he is able to restore the dignity of the legislators.A dignity they deserve to get back.
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