By Vimal Sumbly
About 75 Rajya Sabha seats are “up for grabs” this year in the country. Of these, elections for 37 seats are scheduled on March 16. This has obviously raised many expectations and also caused many disappointments already. Veteran Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar is a case in example. He thought himself to be a fit and deserving case for the house of elders. Having been side-lined and marginalised, he started speaking against the party and its leader, Rahul Gandhi.
Given the fact that the BJP is in power of its own or in alliance in most of the states, it will bag a maximum number of seats. The members to the Rajya Sabha are elected by the state legislative assemblies on sort of “proportional representation” basis, depending on the number of legislators a party has in the state assembly, irrespective of whether it is in power or not. This helps in retaining a balance in the upper house of the parliament between different political parties.
The Indian upper house has been modelled more or less on the House of Lords in the United Kingdom. Our democratic architecture is more or less the copy of the British parliamentary system. However, unlike the House of Lords, the members to the Rajya Sabha are “elected”. In the House of Lords, the “peers” are nominated and there is no election. Most of the members are life peers, which means they remain members for life. A significant number is also of “hereditary peers”.
In India, the members to the Rajya Sabha are formally “elected”, while “nominated” will be a better word to use. The elections to the Rajya Sabha, in 99 per cent cases are a mere formality. Once a party nominates someone, his/ her election in 99 per cent cases is a foregone conclusion. Rarely does it happen that anyone nominated for the “election” in India does not get “elected”.
Rajya Sabha is an important and integral part of our parliament. Unlike the House of Lords, Rajya Sabha is not a ceremonial institution. It is integral to the law making process as any law passed in the Lok Sabha must be passed by the Rajya Sabha also.
Since the members in the upper house do not get elected directly, they owe their fate and destiny to the party that nominates them. In case of the family-run regional parties, the members’ destiny is dependent on the discretion of a single “leader” who “owns” the party and “doles” out the seats for different “considerations”.
Also read: Rajya Sabha polls for 37 seats on March 16 across 10 states
Of late, there have been reports of the Rajya Sabha seats being “distributed” for certain “considerations”, which are not hidden from anyone. While national parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress have difficulty in accommodating their leaders in the upper house, smaller parties with a numerical strength, use different yardsticks.
While the Lok Sabha is undoubtedly more powerful than the Rajya Sabha as the destiny of the government depends on the majority in the Lok Sabha, its life is fragile as compared to the Rajya Sabha. Unlike the Lok Sabha, the Rajya Sabha is a permanent house and can never be dissolved. It is a permanent house with one third of members retiring every two years. The term of the Rajya Sabha members is for six years, while that of the Lok Sabha members is only five years and that too if the house is not dissolved and there are no snap polls.
In order to make the Rajya Sabha a representative house in real terms, it is better to elect the members directly, something like the US Senate, where the members are chosen directly. Irrespective of the population of the states, every state can only elect two Senators, who are elected directly. Since the number of members in the House of Representatives is based on the population of the states, the Senate provides a balance as each and every state can send only two senators each. This helps in preventing dominance of more populous states over the lesser ones.
This experiment can be tried in India also. Some states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have a grievance that having less population puts them at a disadvantage in terms of parliamentary representation and eventually the government formation and power at the Centre.
States like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar get leverage in choosing the government at the Centre because of more MPs, which is due to larger population. They get a similar advantage in the Rajya Sabha also with assemblies having more MLAs, thus getting to choose more Rajya Sabha members. If the number of Rajya Sabha members is the same from every state, irrespective of its population, it can help in restoring the balance.
Both the constitution and the representation of the Rajya Sabha demand a relook. While the British parliamentary model of governance is suited better to Indian conditions as compared to the US Presidential model, it is also not necessary that the British model should be copied and replicated as such without any changes.
It is worth a serious thought. Yes, the political parties will lose the authority and discretion in “selecting” and favouring people by accommodating them in Rajya Sabha, but that is not a heavy price to be paid if the upper house is to be made “representative” of the people’s voice with direct elections instead of discretionary nominations.
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