Yamini Aiyar’s portrayal of “our MPs” (‘Quality at Rs 500 a day?’ IE, September 12) as helpless and hapless creatures responding to “confusing signals” and “perverse incentives” thrust on them by insensitive “voters, political parties and the media” is amusing or exasperating, depending on how one looks at it. Amusing, if one thinks that Aiyar is writing a tongue-in-cheek piece, exasperating if Aiyar would seriously like us to believe that MPs are really dependent on “Rs 500 a day” for what they do or do not do in Parliament. Aiyar seems to convey two messages: (a) PRS Legislative Research, and Democracy Connect are doing outstanding work; and (b) we should sympathise with MPs. The first is fine. It is the second proposition that is confusing.

US Senators and members of the US House of Representatives and the British House of Commons may well be getting significantly larger “staffing allowances” and may well be able to hire 15-18 staffers for “researching legislative and policy issues” and so on, but who has made these decisions? And what do our MPs do, while they could also be making similar decisions? Remember MPLADS and how that money is “used” by most of our MPs — with some honourable exceptions.

And what do our MPs do with whatever meagre staffing allowance they get? Remember flunkies who carry two cell phones and tell people to move because “MP sahib” is coming? If Parliament’s Library and Reference, Research, Documentation and Information Services (LARRDIS) is an “unexploited opportunity” as it “now offers information and reference material to MPs but no serious analysis”, what has prevented MPs from demanding that it provide “serious analysis”? One wonders if Aiyar tried to find out how many of our MPs actually visit the Parliament Library. Does LARRDIS really have to “tie up with organisations like PRS and Democracy Connect”, although there is nothing objectionable in that either, “to offer better support services” to MPs.

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