Times of India: Anuja Jaiswal: Agra: Sunday, March 19, 2017.
The civil society of Agra has initiated the concept of making "shadow" MLAs to identify problems in the constituency and highlight the same for government's attention. General Secretary of Society, Anil Sharma said the idea is to work in public interest and give suggestions and identify the problems faced by the people, since elected legislators tend to ignore them. He said the "shadow MLAs" would take oath on Saturday.
These shadow MLAs would include RTI activists, social workers and retired school principal. Sharma said the concept of shadow cabinet was started in U.K and it spread to all commonwealth countries. In their case, the official opposition acts as shadow cabinet to scrutinise the performance of government's corresponding ministers. He said in India this concept hasn't been picked up by any political party effectively, hence the civil society has taken an initiative in this regard. "We will collect information on matters of public interest and pressurize the MLAs to act upon them", he said. He said, "shadow" MLAs in Agra have been selected on the basis of their social activities and network and their popularity among people.
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