Account for yourselves

In a piece titled “A Law to Make Legislators Accountable,” Madhu Deolekar writes: “To make a democracy successful, the onus is on the people and their representatives. The electors and the elected are expected to discharge their responsibilities, their duties with integrity and honesty on their own volition. A self-imposed discipline (atmanushasan) is regarded as the best imposition of code of conduct... The work or duties of a member are enormous and time consuming. He has hardly any time to attend to his personal, professional or business matters. For carrying out the above narrated functions, a legislator has to work on his own volition; there is no binding or compulsion of any kind, except the moral binding. Therefore, to pinpoint duties of an elected representative is rather a Herculean task. What people should expect from a member is that his conduct should be fair, honourable, above reproach and unquestionable. He should not tarnish the image of the august institution that he is called upon to represent. He should be above corruption and scandals. Normally, if found guilty of breach of honourable conduct, without hesitation he should be given the same punishment as provided by law. However, it is rarely done. In public life there is no greater sanction than the moral code. The electors also have to keep a watch on the conduct of their representative. In this election, 150 MPs are elected with criminal charges against them. This number is more than the number of members with criminal record in the previous Lok Sabha. The number of crorepati MPs is 300. Does this reflect the choice of voters? Because, the election time is the proper time for the voters to scrutinise the performance and conduct of the candidate. Whom would you blame — the electors or the elected, or the electoral system?”

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