Congress Leader Calls for Overhaul of India’s Democratic Framework
On Sunday, Congress MP Manish Tewari expressed the need for a major overhaul of India’s democratic and constitutional setup. He argued that Parliament and other legislative bodies have increasingly failed to fulfill their intended roles.
Tewari’s comments come amid ongoing protests from the Opposition, frequent House adjournments, and a noticeable drop in legislative activity during recent Parliamentary sessions.
He pointed out that these institutions have shifted from their primary purpose to becoming battlegrounds for political power plays. “If Parliament continues to operate as a gladiatorial arena for seizing power, it risks sinking deeper into a moral and political crisis, a trend that started in the early 1990s,” he noted.
Highlighting the dwindling number of parliamentary sessions, Tewari compared the first Lok Sabha, which convened for 135 days from 1952 to 1957, to the current 17th Lok Sabha, which has managed only 55 days, with many of those days marred by interruptions. He mentioned that earlier Lok Sabhas have also struggled with legislative productivity.
He warned that if the current situation persists, the 18th Lok Sabha could see even less effective functioning than its predecessor.
Tewari emphasized the pressing need for a thorough reassessment of India’s democratic principles, stating that representative institutions seem increasingly irrelevant. “We need to fundamentally rethink our democratic structure because it feels like we are no longer a true democracy, as the voices of the people are largely sidelined,” he remarked.
He went further to criticize the existing system, describing it as a “two-horse system” dominated by an arbitrary executive and a judiciary that appoints its judges without proper protocols.
As the monsoon session of Parliament began on July 20 and is set to run until August 13, disruptions have been frequent, with Opposition parties pushing the government on various issues, hindering the progress of both Houses.
