Stay away from disrupting legislative works: Pranab

President was speaking at platinum jubilee celebrations of West Bengal Assembly in Kolkata

As the Parliament is staring at possibly yet another stormy session in the wake of state poll results and the controversy surrounding the Communal Violence Bill, President Pranab Mukherjee today expressed concern over frequent disruption of sessions in the legislative houses.

"I am a bit concerned about a few things which I believe are not heading towards the direction. I feel we are decreasing the number of days of the session of the legislature. The first Lok Sabha witnessed 677 days of session, while the 14th Lok Sabha had only 332 days," said Mukherjee.

He was speaking at the platinum jubilee celebrations of the West Bengal Assembly here, Mukherjee said, he was concerned at the low number of days during which the house remain in session.

President also reminded lawmakers in parliament as well as in the state assemblies about their responsibilities towards the people of the country. Blaming the lawmakers for introducing "disruption" as a new element in democracy, he said, "Democracy has three essential Ds, - debate, dissentient and decision but unfortunately we have brought in a fourth D- Disruption."

"When we are disrupting the house we forget that we are causing harm to ourselves. We are not fulfilling our responsibilities. The responsibility of a lawmaker is not given rather it's the lawmaker who seeks the responsibility from the voters," said Mukherjee.

Sharing his own experience in parliamentary politics Mukherjee said, "A number of times it has been decided in speakers' meetings that the house should be in session at least for 100 days- whether in Lok Sabha or Vidhan Sabha. I accept the number of parliamentary committees have increased but still the more the house in session, the better."

Mukherjee also pointed out that instruments like ordinance should be promulgated only in case of immediate need. "Some states, however, appear to be pushing through certain controversial legislations through ordinances. Such ordinances do not have the approval of the House and are not debated or discussed properly by legislators. Such ordinances should normally die a natural death if the Assembly fails to ratify them," he said.

Incidentally, the West Bengal assembly too has seen many disruptions in recent times. In fact, both Left Front and the Congress have decided to stay away from the three-day celebrations of 75 years of the legislative assembly as they were not properly "treated" by the ruling party. Leader of Opposition in the Assembly opposition Surjya Kanta Mishra had earlier written to speaker Biman Banerjee saying that they "have been forcefully pushed to an edge, thereby leaving no room for us to participate (in this three-day special session)".

In the absence of opposition during this three day special session that ended today, several Trinamool legislators occupied the opposition benches inside the assembly.