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Meanwhile in Delhi

Skeletons are tumbling out every day now that cobrapost.com and TV Today have blown the whistle on the cash-for-questions scandal in Parliament. The Mudgal case is recorded history. But there's another glaring case that's been the fodder for much gossip this past week. It happened in the early seventies and involved an opposition MP.

One question by him on the income tax returns of a famous sari house of Delhi led to extensive raids on the latter's shops. For two days, the shops remained shut as the owners pulled all possible strings to bail themselves out. Inthe process, the sari house lost lakhs of business.

It seems the MP had a spat with the owners but when a fellow MP tried to take up the issue in the house, he was slapped down. The link, therefore, was never officially established as in the Mudgal case. The incident demonstrates the power of an MP's question. And power, as we well know, corrupts.

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Ironically, nearly a decade ago, CPI(M) MP Mohd. Salim had tried to get the Parliament to address the issue of questions for sale. He brought it up in the Rajya Sabha after he saw some outsiders getting MPs to sign blank question forms in Parliament House library. His concern is a matter of record in the Rajya Sabha proceedings. Salim disclosed that he had seen some strange looking characters, flaunting thick gold chains and bracelets, lobbying with MPs. They clearly represented outside interests and were trying to utilise Question Hour to promote these interests, he told the House.

There was the usual hungama and everyone clucked and nodded as the then Parliamentary Affairs Minister V C Shukla rose to assure the MPs that he would take up the matter with the Rajya Sabha chairman. Salim demanded a proper investigation to find out how these people had gained access to Parliament and how they managed to come into areas that are off limits to the public, like the library. He also suggested that Parliament come up with a strict code of conduct for MPs. As we now know, nothing happened after the initial expression of outrage. Salim himself was so put off by Parliament's apathy that since then, he has not submitted a single query for Question Hour.

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MPs are advocating the carrot-and-stick method to curb the commercialisation of Parliament procedures. One is a strict code of conduct with stringent punishment for violation. The other is to raise the monthly emoluments of MPs. An MP gets a monthly salary of Rs 24,500 plus perks that include freebies like 32 single air journeys in a year, a government house, 150,000 free telephone calls annually and unlimited first class airconditioned rail travel.
It sounds like a lot but most MPs feel the pinch. They maintain two establishments, one in Delhi and one in their constituency. They spend a tidy sum every day just on tea and snacks for the scores of visitors they receive. In any case, at today's prices and the increasing pressure from their constituency to perform, maybe it's time we took a more realistic view of what we pay our MPs.

Email: a_jerath@dnaindia.net