The Big Story: Do your job

Even in the most acrimonious of political moments,you can trust the parties that are supposed to lead India to come together in furtherance of their political hegemony and unwillingness to be held accountable. It happened when the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress came together to pass a law whitewashing their illegal acceptance of foreign funds, and now it is happening again. On Wednesday, both the BJP and Congress came out against the use of the ‘None of the Above’ option in Rajya Sabha elections.

The matter had become a point of concern because of the upcoming polls to Rajya Sabha seats in Gujarat, where the BJP seems to be making an all-out stand to prevent Congress leader Ahmed Patel from being re-elected. Initially only the Congress spoke up against the NOTA option, which had been notified by the local authority to ensure it would be on the ballot. The Congress approached the Supreme Court saying NOTA goes against the very structure of indirect elections, and should be struck down.

Sensing that the Congress might be successful in its legal efforts, the BJP too on Wednesday approached the Election Commission, saying that since the inclusion of NOTA had provoked debate among political parties, it ought to be kept aside until consensus had emerged. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the Congress that it should go to the Supreme Court and the Election Commission to rectify the matter.

Why? Why do parliamentarians – the people with the power to alter laws – have to rush to the court or an independent body to alter something that underpins our system of representative democracy? One might argue that time was of the essence, since Rajya Sabha elections to the Gujarat seats are just a few days away. But, as the Election Commission pointed out, NOTA has been on Rajya Sabha ballots since 2014.

Indeed, it should be a matter of shame for Members of Parliament that a crucial change to the Representation of People Act, the law that defines how our democracy works, is still in the realm of judicial interpretation. The Supreme Court added NOTA to the Indian system through a judgment in 2013, and rather than being followed by debates and amendments in Parliament, the parties have simply allowed the matter to remain there. Hence the ambiguity: The Supreme Court ordered NOTA to be on all EVMs and “ballot papers”, and India’s indirect elections, like Rajya Sabha or Presidential polls, use ballot papers. The presidential polls did not have this option. So should the Rajya Sabha polls have it?

There’s a more fundamental fear for the Congress and BJP here. The anti-defection law means a Member of Legislative Assembly is subject to disqualification for ignoring its whip. But there is no settled jurisprudence on what happens if an MLA votes NOTA instead of her party’s candidate. NOTA on ballot papers would suggest the dangerous idea that MLAs may decide for themselves (or be coerced into deciding) who would make for the best Rajya Sabha MP. And neither the BJP nor the Congress wants that.

So, the parties will run to the Supreme Court, which is set to hear the matter on Thursday, and the Election Commission, asking those institutions to do what Parliament is unable, unwilling or simply uninterested in doing.

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Punditry

  1. “One more implication of Nitish [Kumar]’s move has not been noted,” writes Ashutosh Varshney in the Indian Express. “In terms of long-term reconfiguration of Indian politics, it could be far and away the most serious. It is the idea that the Muslim vote can be rendered irrelevant.”
  2. If the Supreme Court is to rule in a truly meaningful way this time, says Chinmayi Arun in the Hindu, it will need to define the right to privacy in a manner that makes it difficult to undermine.
  3. Anurag Behar in Mint says the government has begun a methodical overhaul of the teacher education system in India, one that will face fierce resistance but is crucial for India’s future.
  4. The Monetary Policy Committee seems to be caught in the old trap of obsessing over inflation to the point of ignoring near-deflationary conditions, says a leader in the Hindu Businessline.
  5. “Central banks are born to lead. When they start following commercial lenders or asset prices, the message for investors is that the authorities have lost the plot,” writes Shuli Ren in BloombergQuint.
  6. Simply leaving the troubles of coastal Karnataka to local police authorities is not enough, writes Valerian Rodrigues in the Hindu, adding that the forces at play are trying to sever ties between communities.

Giggle

Don’t miss

Mayank Jain maps out much of India’s healthcare sector, explaining how private sector profits are soaring even as government investment stagnates.

As percentage of GDP, public spending has not risen much over the last six years, government data suggests. In 2009, the government spent 1.12% of the GDP on health. For 2016-’17, it set aside 1.18% of the GDP for healthcare in the budgetary estimates. Meanwhile, states’ spending in the same period has risen from 0.7% of their GDP to 0.9% the health ministry claims.

This, experts suggested, is a measly amount when compared to the country’s needs. Scroll.in spoke to Ravi Duggal from advocacy body Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes, who said that the private expenditure and investment on health was bound to go up when the government was not spending enough money on building and maintaining facilities.

“When NITI Aayog itself is promoting private companies, the public facilities do not stand a chance to compete,” Duggal said. “The encroachment of private sector in healthcare has been happening for two decades but it has become quite rapid in the last few years as people are forced to pay for health at private healthcare providers instead of getting treated at public facilities.”