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Did you know your MPs can’t vote freely?

Both houses of Parliament have adjourned sine die (meaning: without assigning a day for a further meeting or hearing). Now we shall have to wait till the Winter session, which usually happens in the last week of November, for more Parliamentary awesomeness. Sigh.

Last week in parliament, votes were ‘whipped’ and one of the most powerful laws in Indian democracy was invoked (a law not many are aware of); the Speaker suspended a bunch of rules allowing a flurry of legislations without warning; and many, many bills were passed before the Monsoon session of Parliament ended a day in advance.

After all that, no wonder it’s time for our MPs to go into hibernation!

Whippin’ them votes

You think your Members of Parliament wield awesome amounts of power, don’t you?

Well, let me break it to you: your MP can’t even vote according to his/her own free will.

Most people aren’t aware of this, but the MP has to vote according to his/her party stand or face the consequences.

In this section, we are going to talk a little bit about one of the most powerful laws in Indian democracy: the Anti-Defection law, and how the Party ‘Whip’ invokes this law.

The Goods and Service Tax (GST) was passed a week before in Rajya Sabha and came up for discussion in Lok Sabha on Monday. The lower house had to assent to the amendments made by Rajya Sabha, so a full day discussion happened (yet again) followed by voting.

Since it was a Constitutional amendment, two-thirds majority was required for the bill to get through. And the voting had to be recorded.

Lok Sabha TV was kind enough to show us the mechanism that is used for voting (Red button for No, Yellow for Abstain and Green for Yes).

The bill was passed with a final score of 443-0. (Epic cheering noises!!!)

Let’s do a quick calculation before we proceed.

All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Khazhagam (AIADMK) party had walked out, taking away 37 votes with it. Since the total strength of Lok Sabha is 545 members, it means 65 members were conspicuously absent from the lower house when the voting happened.

The bill sailed through, but floor management is a tough, tough job.

BJP must be like:

Here’s the thing though, if the present government needed two-thirds majority to be present (363 members) it also needed a mechanism to ensure these many members were present. What if, post lunch, it’s raining cats and dogs in Delhi and the members had a satisfying Butter Chicken meal and are too lazy to come out and vote on a bill?

(I’m just saying. It’s totally possible.)

So there needs to be some kind of compulsion to ensure that they come and vote.

This is where the party whips come in. The job of a party whip is to ensure that members are present during a vote. Also, it’s their job to ensure that the party stand is communicated to the rest of the members and they vote on a particular legislation according to the orders of the ‘high command’.

In case of the GST bill, sources say that all political parties had issued a whip for members to be present & vote in favour. All parties except AIADMK, of course. But the AIADMK *did* issue a whip to stage a walkout.

Thou Shalt Not Vote Against the Wishes of Your Party Leader

The whips impose a law called ‘Anti-defection’. It was passed in the year 1985 and laid down the process by which elected representatives can be disqualified for defection. Simply put, if a Member disobeys the directives of the party leadership, he/she will be kicked out of the Parliament or Assembly, as the case may be. Yes, this law applies to Members of Legislative Assembly (MLA) as well. This law also applies to representatives who resign from their parties or change parties after being elected.

The members can’t ‘defect’ in any which way. The party whip issues a directive about how each member is supposed to vote and it *must* be followed.

This law provides a very effective way to strike deals with political parties. Come to think of it, if this law did not exist, the Government would have to go to each and every one of the 545 Members in Lok Sabha and convince them to vote in favour of the GST. Even members from their own party might have a problem with the bill! Or someone from the AIADMK might be favouring the bill and the others might be opposing it. The scenario would be wildly different from what we saw last week.

After running from pillar to post, on the voting day, the leadership would have to hope that two-thirds of them show up and actually deliver what they promised.

Now, because of this anti-defection law, they just need to talk to the party leader and convince him/her. Once the leader is convinced, MPs will be ordered to be present and vote as a block.

The Great Indian Bill Rush

Last week, we saw a flurry of legislative activity as bills were brought in without warning and despite objections from many members. To explain how bills come into either house, I must tell you about this very special committee called the Business Advisory Committee (BAC).

This is a Committee chaired by the Speaker of the House (Both Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha have separate committees) and whips of all political parties are members of this committee, so there is representation across the board. BAC decides what would be the agenda of the house during the week and how much time should be allotted to each bill being discussed. The members also make appeals to the Speaker about important national issues and make requests to hold discussions on various topics. Ultimately, it’s the speaker’s decision what the agenda would be.

There was an interesting news item recently that highlighted how the Speaker refused to admit a discussion on Atrocities against Dalits because she wanted the house to deliberate only “development” issues. She seems to have relented later because a discussion was held on Thursday to discuss violence against Dalits.

Last week, some strange things happened.

Two bills were brought in without any prior warning, introduced and passed on the same day. Copies of the bill were circulated that very morning and most representatives had no time to prepare and file amendments in the bill. This was done at the behest of the speaker by suspending a bunch of rules which say that enough time should be given for Members to deliberate the bills.

Here are the two conspicuous bills, as they appear in all their textual glory, as per the Revised List of Business (Dated August 10, 2016)

If you wish to nerd out, you may check it out yourself. Because PDFs are awesome!

Rule 74 of the Procedure and Conduct of Business in the House says bills must be circulated to all MPs at least two days in advance before the introduction of the bill in the house. In this case, it did not happen.

NK Premchandran, MP from Kerala of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (I fondly call him ‘Gandalf of Lok Sabha’, conscience keeper extraordinaire), objected to this and before he could actually raise it, the speaker put it on record that she has suspended rule 74. But no real reason was given for the hurry.

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan be like…

Legislations Passed Last week

Lok Sabha

Rajya Sabha

The author can be contacted on Twitter @Memeghnad
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