Indian Express: New Delhi:
Wednesday, May 15, 2013.
Giving a
whole new dimension to the tradition of politicians “keeping it in the family”,
dozens of Members of Parliament (MPs) have been found employing their sons,
daughters, wives, brothers, sisters and other close relatives as their personal
assistants (PAs) paid for by the state.
Investigation
by The Indian Express, based on data accessed under the RTI Act, has found that
at least 146 MPs 104 from the Lok Sabha and 42 from the Rajya Sabha have
appointed at least 191 relatives in their personal staff.
Under the
salary and allowances rules, the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha secretariats have to
pay Rs 30,000 per month to those employed by MPs for secretarial assistance.
This amount can be paid entirely to one PA or an MP can split the amount between
more than one assistant.
Although an
MP appointing a family member or a close relative as a PA does not violate any
rule, experts and some senior MPs said it certainly raises questions of ethics
and propriety. Such choices also come at the cost of ignoring loyal party
workers or those better qualified from among their voters and supporters, they
said.
Information
accessed by The Indian Express shows that this army of family PAs includes 60
sons, 36 wives, 27 daughters, seven brothers, seven daughters-in-law, four
husbands and 10 cousins, among others.
The list also
cuts across lines of parties and political ideologies. Of the 146 MPs employing
close relatives as PAs, 38 are from the BJP, 36 from Congress, 15 from BSP, 12
from Samajwadi Party, eight from DMK, seven from Biju Janata Dal, six from
JD(U) and the rest from other parties.
Of these, 36
MPs have appointed more than one relative as PAs while at least four have
appointed three family members in their personal staff. Some members have appointed
a family member as one PA and are paying them a large portion of the Rs 30,000
monthly entitlement and a second, non-family member as a PA for the remaining,
smaller amount.
For instance,
S K Bwiswmuthiary (Assam), Nikhil Kumar Choudhary (Bihar), Mohammed Ali Khan
(Andhra Pradesh), S Thangavelu (Tamil Nadu), Dilipbhai Pandya (Gujarat), Ali
Anwar Ansari (Bihar), Munqad Ali and Brajbhushan Sharan Singh (both UP) have
appointed their two sons as PAs. Samajwadi Party MP from UP Tufani Saroj has
appointed his two daughters.
C L Ruala,
(Congress-Mizoram), Gorakhnath Pande (BSP-UP), Nripendra Nath Roy (AIFB-West
Bengal) and Tapas Paul (TMC-West Bengal) have appointed their wife and son.
Sharifuddin
Shariqe from Jammu and Kashmir has appointed his grandson and granddaughter as
PAs. Saifuddin Soz from J&K and Rishang Keishing from Manipur have
appointed their granddaughters.
BSP MP from
UP Dr Baliram has appointed his two daughters and wife as PAs. His party
colleague Ramashankar Rajbhar has appointed his two daughters and one son. BJP
MP from Karnataka S Pakkirappa has appointed his son and daughter. BJP MP from
Indore Sumitra Mahajan first appointed her daughter-in-law as her PA in Parliament
but when Mahajan was appointed chairman of a parliamentary committee, the same
daughter-in-law was appointed PA there too. Similarly, SP member from
Allahabad, Rewati Raman Singh, has appointed his daughter as PA in Parliament
and his niece as PA in his parliamentary committee secretariat.
The data
accessed by The Indian Express also shows that 251 PA s of MPs, including some
from among the 191 close relatives, are paid much below the minimum wage
applicable in Delhi. The 251 comprise of 202 PAs of Lok Sabha members and 49
PAs of Rajya Sabha members, with some of them being paid Rs 2,000 per month
while the minimum wage for even unskilled labourers in Delhi is more than Rs
8,000 per month.
Congress MP
from Jammu, Madanlal Sharma, who has appointed his wife and son as his PAs,
stresses that he has not violated any rule. “I am sure I have not violated any
rule by appointing my relatives as my PAs. My son is a law graduate and
returned from London. I depend on him more than anybody. If such appointments
are not allowed, I will not do so,” he said.
Parliamentary
experts, however, have a different take.
“This is
certainly an ethical issue and related to the conduct of the members,” said
Subhash Kashyap, former Secretary General of the Lok Sabha. “This should be
considered either by the ethics committees or by the presiding officers of both
houses.”
Ironically
though, at least three MPs on the 14-member Lok Sabha ethics committee - Dara
Singh Chauhan, Sumitra Mahajan and Prem Das Rai - and one MP on the 10-member
Rajya Sabha ethics panel, E M S Natchiappan, are themselves on the list of MPs
employing close relatives as PAs.
“Although
there is no bar on appointing close relatives as personal staff, propriety
demands that MPs should think and carefully consider before appointing
relatives as PAs,” said Lok Sabha ethics committee chairman Sis Ram Ola. “I
have been appointed chairman of this committee very recently and will consider
this issue when it comes before the committee.”
The BJP’s
Ravi Shankar Prasad, who is on the Rajya Sabha ethics panel, said he considered
this practice “inappropriate”. “There may not be any legal or ethical issue,
but this is a matter of political propriety. I consider it inappropriate. This
is a larger issue in a time when politics is becoming family oriented. We will
look at it whenever it comes before the ethics committee,” he said.
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