In a strong statement, BJP MP Varun Gandhi on Tuesday questioned why lawmakers should be usurping powers to hike their own salaries that too in line with private sector and pass important Bills like the Aadhaar legislation without deliberations.
Raising the issue during the Zero Hour, Varun sought that Bills should be passed after dissecting and deliberating and said that 50 per cent of Bills in the Parliament were not referred to Parliamentary committees in last 15 years.
"When Bills are passed without serious deliberation, it defeats the purpose of having a Parliament. The House itself has been created to dissect, analyse and debate laws, and ensure that every law has a strong policy mechanism behind it. The rush to pass bills shows a priority for politics and not policy", he said in the lok Sabha.
The MP said it was "shameful" that the number of sittings in the lok Sabha had dropped from 123 days a year in 1952 to 75 in 2016.
Varun wanted an external body, like the one exists in British Parliamentary system, with no affiliations to politicians, to determine remuneration of the MPs who he said have raised their salaries 400 per cent in the last decade, in comparison to 13 per cent in the United Kingdom, wondering whether they had "earned" this massive increment.
"Giving ourselves the authority to increase our own fiscal compensation is not in line with the morals of our democracy", he said.
Varun said MPs were drawing salaries like that in the Private sector which drives with the logic of profit whereas " ours is service to the Nation."
In this context, the MP quoted Mahatma Gandhi as saying "In my opinion, the allowances drawn by the members of Parliament and various Assemblies must be in proportion to the services rendered to the nation".
Criticising the MPs for often raising the demand for a salary hike, he said the Jawaharlal Nehru cabinet at its first meeting in 1952 had taken a decision not to avail salaries for six months in view of the people's sufferings at the time.
"When matters regarding salary are raised recurrently, it makes me worry about the moral compass of the House. Nearly 18,000 farmers have committed suicide over the last one year. Where is our focus," he asked.