Rajya Sabha debate on WRB

Apart from the controversial issue of sub-quota, the WRB is also discussed animatedly for its other features. One is the phenomenon of rotation of seats. Many analysts are concerned that this aspect is likely to sound the death knell of representative democracy, because the MPs will now have no incentive to nurture a constituency. It is interesting that the Jayanthi Natarajan Committee considered this issue, but rejected it finding no merit in the argument. I too don’t find any merit in this argument because if an MP had indeed nurtured a constituency which he or she might not represent after the next election, the voters in his or her new constituency or whenever he or she contests again after an interregnum, will positively consider this aspect, and hope that he or she would similarly nurture the new constituency too. In any case, nurturing a constituency is strictly not a legislator’s duty, as he or she is expected to contribute to law-making rather than attend to municipal works in the constituency. How did the MPs in Rajya Sabha debate this issue (or debate this at all?). The readers can find it out themselves.
The debate is now available on Rajya Sabha site here,, here, here, and here.

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1 comment
  • Quite a sad state of affairs that most pieces on any issue being debated in parliament have this kind of sarcastic "or did they debate it at all" comment. The first one that springs to mind is Fali Narimans foreword to Rajeev Dhawan's book on reservations. I'm not in the least saying it is unwarranted. Just that it is unfortunate that several important issues are in fact not debated.