RS ethics panel to take up issue of MPs employing relatives as PAs

Following The Indian Express report on Wednesday that as many as 146 MPs employ their relatives as personal assistants,entitled to a monthly salary of Rs 30,000 from Parliament,Ram Gopal Yadav,chairman of Rajya Sabha’s Committee on Ethics,said he would take “suo motu cognisance” of the report and raise the issue before the panel.

“This practice is ethically incorrect,” said Yadav. “The provision envisages employing people with secretarial skills,certainly not relatives. Employing relatives is wrong… Parties should impose a code against this practice,and consider promoting party workers to these jobs,” he said. Yadav,who is also SP general secretary,said he would seek Mulayam Singh Yadav’s intervention to curb the practice among his party MPs.