New Delhi, March 18: Can a Member of Parliament be granted leave of absence from the sittings of the House for attending to work relating to his factory or constituency? The Lok Sabha was faced with this question for the first time to-day.
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The question was posed by Mr. Hiren Mukherjee (CPI), when the Speaker put before the House the report of the Committee on absence of members. According to convention, the report is passed without discussion, but Prof. Mukherjee raised some issues of principle.
He said that according to the report, two members, whom he declined to name, had been recommended leave for 57 days and 27 days respectively for work relating to their constituencies.
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Another member had been recommended leave for 59 days because of trouble in his factory. These recommendations, according to Mr. Mukherjee, were “intriguing.”
He said Parliament had made ample provision for members to visit their constituencies when the House was sitting.
“We are here not as delegates of constituencies. We are representatives of the people of India happening to represent a particular constituency,” Mr. Mukherjee added. He could not understand a member not attending to parliamentary work, because of trouble in some factory of farm. These were symptomatic of the “decline and disarray” which parliamentary life had reached.