Madhya Pradesh Assembly here on Wednesday unanimously adopted a Government resolution requiring submission of assets details of all the MLAs and their dependent family members with Assembly secretariat every year by June 30.
The BJP legislators termed it a toothless law to keep corruption of the public representatives in check. The opposition suggested involving bureaucrats’ inclusion in the provision of submitting assets details with the Assembly.
MP is not the first State as several others including UP, Bihar, Karnataka have in the past adopted similar resolutions in the past. The Congress party had included this resolution in the election manifesto.
Backing the resolution moved in the MP Assembly by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Dr Govind Singh, senior BJP MLA Vishwas Sarang called it a feeble provision. The former Minister advised the State Government to bring in legislation in this regard to make this effective.
Leader of Opposition Gopal Bhargav joining the debate cast aspersions on mandatory assets details submission saying everyone knows how these details are compiled.
“With plenty of honesty, I would like to say there would be few politicians, businessmen and government servants who deposit cent per cent actual details of their properties,” said Bhargav.
Supporting the demand from his party MLA of a law on the asset declaration, the LOp suggested that there should be a stringent punishment for those who supress or offer wrong information of assets. “If you wish, make provision for life imprisonment and we would back this,” he added.
Replying to the BJP MLAs, Parliamentary Affairs minister Govind Singh said the state government had also forwarded the proposal of bringing a legislation on the issue but the Parliamentary Empowered Committee replied that no state has formulated such a legislation.
Claiming that it is true that mostly public representatives engage in money minting once elected and several of them make arrangements for three-four generations at a time, the minister assured the opposition of consulting Chief Minister on bringing a legislation on assets of public representatives.
The Opposition, however, remained adamant on giving the provision a legal form and also suggested to include bureaucrats be included in this mandatory declaration.
The Minister clarified that there are legal provisions to regulate assets of Government servants. When LOP Gopal Bhargav called the resolution a toothless and clawless provision, Singh hit back asking why not the BJP introduced a law on this in last 15 years.
The Assembly Speaker NP Prajapti joining the chorus with the opposition also suggested the Treasury benches to consider inclusion of other pillars of democracy in this binding provision.
Later, the resolution was adopted by the House unanimously.