All out for 272

July 21, 2008, TV channels were claiming this is the first time they are covering a confidence motion in parliament and D Street behaving like a Trojan infected PC, not knowing what to do. But the day would belong to Doordarshan for TRP, for sure, as its Lok sabha TV provided a right mix of thrill, comedy, action and stunts for entertainment value.

Interesting to note that some parties are considering this period as a test of character/strength of their belief in policies, some considering as an opportunity to take revenge, few looking at it as an earnings season (1^st quarter?) and few to console their battered ego. In all this mess and modalities of constitutional engine, I remain puzzled about the role of a Citizen. His duty and fundamental rights are executed once in 5 years and that’s the end of it. Do the electorates have a forum or a redressal mechanism for monitoring the functioning of representatives thereafter? A checkpoint, which would monitor his majority within his constituency every year or in fixed intervals. This would enable him to echo the opinion of the majority of electorates in his constituency- thereby he can be termed as a TRUE representative.

Coming back to earlier point, incase of crisis situations like this, the 540 odd people at the parliament could not form an exhaustive sample for the 100 crore people, nor does it look possible that 100 crore people can cast votes on demand. So, forming smaller representative group of people from different walks of life for each constituency can be a better exhaustive sample set. I understand you saying that this ‘representative group’ will burgeon to be another bureaucratic set up. However how it can be formed as a better collective sample devoid of bureaucracy is what is to be desired. Any thoughts?