BJP has called for a law to make it mandatory for Members of Parliament to place any invitations from foreign countries, Governments or organisation to be routed through the Ministry of External Affair. The invitation will be sent to the FCRA division of Ministry of Home Affairs ten clear days in advance of the date from which the "foreign hospitality" is proposed to be accepted.
The prior permission will be required to be obtained and "mere sending" the application would not automatically grant the go ahead for the foreign visit, according to a private member bill introduced in the upper house by BJP's Rajya Sabha member GVL Narasimha Rao.
Seeking to make foreign tours of members of Parliament ‘transparent’, the bill requires a copy of the application should also be sent to Ministry of Parliamentary affairs.
The new stringent format for the application to obtain the permission for foreign visits makes it mandatory for the visiting MP to provide all details of the foreign host including his "name, nationality, passport number, profession, address, e-mail address and mobile number." This is besides, providing the "nature of hospitality-cash or kind", purpose, duration of stay and approximate expenditure.
The bill intends to make all the details mandatory for obtaining permission from the Government.
"Application with complete details in the prescribed form (FC-2) along with the invitation letter from the host be sent to the Ministry of home affairs,FCRA,division..", the bill says. This is after all the applications are routed through the Foreign Ministry.
Lawmakers were issued guidelines in 2017 about sharing details of their foreign visits, including the ones in personal capacity, and the Parliament Affairs Ministry in July 2019 reiterated them through a communication, Rao said.
However, most MPs have not adhered to the advisory for want of an statutory requirement, he said.
"MPs are important public functionaries and transparency about their functioning, sources of their income and expenses is necessary to demonstrate their financial integrity. From time-to-time, Parliament has enacted legislation and framed rules to ensure that those elected to Parliament uphold the cherished ideal," he said.
The bill was introduced by Rao on Friday to amend RP Act 1951 to make it mandatory for MPs to disclose their foreign trips to the Parliament secretariat.
Though private member's bills are rarely passed, a discussion on the proposed legislation may allow BJP members to get back at Congress as the BJP Government has in the recent past attacked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for his "secret" foreign trips.
In October this year, the party at a press conference sought to know the details of his "frequent" foreign visits asking if he was involved in some secret operation.