No. 1 CM Modi has the lowest average assembly sittings

Even as the Gujarat Assembly meets on Thursday for a single day session, the state’s longest-serving chief minister Narendra Modi (he completes 11 years as CM in October) , figures right at the bottom as far as average assembly sittings is concerned. The average assembly sittings in Modi’s reign is sharply lower than all previous chief ministers of the state.

Modi became the chief minister in October 2001. Government records show that since then, the state assembly has met only 327 times, i.e. just about 30 days in a year. This is, by far, the lowest among all chief ministers of the state.

Jivraj Mehta, the first chief minister of the state, was CM for slightly over three years but the number of assembly sittings during his tenure was 170, an average of over 51 days in a year. His successor, Balwantrai Mehta, was chief minister for two years during which there were 138 assembly sittings.

Hitendra Desai’s tenure of five years and eight months as chief minister — Modi eclipsed his record to become longest serving CM of the state — had 323 assembly sittings, i.e. an average of 57 sittings each year.

During the tenure of Modi’s predecessor Keshubhai Patel (who was CM for four years and two months) the state assembly had an average of almost 50 sittings a year.The state assembly had 261 sittings during the four-and-a-half year tenure of Amarsinh Chaudhary, the first and only tribal chief minister of the state — an average of 59 sittings a year. Even during the reign of Shankarsinh Vaghela, who was CM for just one year, the assembly had 33 sittings. The Opposition Congress says the fall in number of assembly sittings during Modi’s rule reflects his attempt to subvert democracy. “This is subversion of democracy by the chief minister – an attempt to muzzle the Opposition. The number of assembly sittings has come down sharply from the days when Congress was in power, particularly since Modi became chief minister,” says Shaktisinh Gohil, leader of Opposition in the assembly. With Thursday’s one-day session, the total number of sittings of the 12th Assembly would be 150 days. This will be the lowest for any of the 12 assemblies, which have lasted the full term, since the state came into existence in 1960.

The 11th Assembly, which lasted from 2002 to 2007 and also had Modi as the CM, had 154 sittings. No doubt, the Opposition is angry with the government’s decision to convene only a single day session. The government, however, defends the decision. “There is no additional important business to conduct in the House. This is why only a one-day session has been convened on the day of presidential voting,” says minister of state for parliamentary \affairs, Pradipsinh Jadeja.

However, experts say that this is a sign of a rot in the functioning of the legislature in the country.

“This is a sad sign. It shows that legislators do not take their legislative responsibilities seriously,” says Prof Jagdeep Chhokar, one of the founder-members of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). A former dean of IIM-Ahmedabad, Chhokar, however, says that the fall in number of sittings of legislatures is not limited to Gujarat alone.

“Sittings of legislatures in most states, and also those of the parliament, have gone down in recent years. It’s a pan-India trend,” he says. Chhokar complains that even when the legislature meets, legislators prefer to play to the gallery, instead of undertaking serious work.