Parliament has come to a stand still and we are seeing no business being transacted in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. I am sure many of us are anguished and pained that our parliamentarians are letting us down. I have had many of my friends express this to me and plead helplessness. Democracy will be the tamasha that is has become in India, only when we, the people allow it to be. Just because our parliamentarians have forgotten their primary accountability is to you and me doesn’t mean that we cannot hold ourselves accountable to being a good citizen. We need to engage and ensure that they hear our voices….Let our fight against ‘voice poverty’ begin today and let us write to everyone concerned – the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, the Chair of the Rajya Sabha, to the Prime Minister, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, the Presidents of all political parties and demand that they start expressing their views in the spirit of democracy through debate and dialogue within the house. After all, they claim to represent our voices and let us get them to first hear and understand what our ‘VOICES’ are….Below are samples of letters that I recently sent to Ms Sumitra Mahajan, Speaker of the Lok Sabha and Ms Sonia Gandhi, the President of the Indian National Congress. If you believe that you want to make a difference; if you are a concerned Indian Citizen; the time to act is now…Begin with engaging with the people out there and let them know of your concerns. Begin by writing to them, emailing them, calling them and letting them know that they exist only because of us and they are paid to perform, they are elected to represent us and finally they are the servants of ‘we the people’.
-Balu
PS: All email ids of elected parliamentarians can be sources on the websites of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha