In a new development, the Jagan Mohan Reddy government has decided to scrap the Legislative Council of Andhra Pradesh, The Times of India reported. The bill to scrap Legislative Council is likely to be presented in the legislative assembly today. Jagan’s party, YSRCP, has absolute majority in the Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly with 151 seats out of 175, and therefore, he can easily get the required two third majority to scrap the Legislative Council.
The Legislative Council, where Chandrababu Naidu’s party, TDP, has majority, rejected many bills passed by YSRCP government including the one related to change the medium of instruction to English in government schools, and this has rattled Reddy, who has decided to scrap the Council altogether.
The Andhra government, despite all its flawed policies in the last six months, has absolute right to take decisions independently, as it was elected by two third majority. Legislative Council and Rajya Sabha, are at best the instrument of deep state to stop the functioning of elected government independently.
The concept of Rajya Sabha and Legislative Council comes from House of Lords in Britain, where the nobility, in its attempt to keep power away from the hands of elected people, gave major powers to the so called upper house. However, over the period of time, even Britain reduced the power of House of Lords, and now it is just a nominal institution.
In India, the concept was adopted for even the provincial governments, and many states had Legislative Councils. The state of UP, Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana still follow the archaic colonial practice, and have Legislative Councils. Many states including Assam, MP, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal scrapped the Legislative Councils, and now AP is following the suit.
Andhra Pradesh had scrapped Legislative Council almost two and a half decades ago under the leadership of NTR led TDP, but in 2007, Jagan’s father, YSR, restored the Council, to give position to the unelectable sycophants and cronies of his party.
Both parties came to full circle as TDP, which scrapped the Council in 1985, is using the institution to reject the bills passed by YSRCP dominated Council, while Jagan Reddy is rolling back his father’s decision to reinstate the Council.
Other states such as UP, Bihar and Maharashtra should follow the Jagan’s lead and scrap the Legislative Councils. The seats of these Councils as well as those of Rajya Sabha are a burden on taxpayer’s money, and are being used by parties to place unelectable sycophants of the party. Sometimes these seats are even sold by the parties.