No chance for DMK to revive Legislative Council: Jayalalithaa

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) would not return to power in Tamil Nadu again and would not get another opportunity to seek to revive the Legislative Council, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa said in the Assembly on Tuesday.

Replying to a debate on a resolution rescinding an earlier decision of the Assembly calling for the revival of the Upper House of the State legislature, Ms. Jayalalithaa said, “As far as I know, the DMK is the only party which wants to revive the Council. As they are unlikely to return to power, there is no chance that there will be another attempt to bring back the Council.”

“The sun has set and this sun will not rise again,” she said, in a reference to the ‘Rising Sun', the DMK's election symbol.

She was responding to a request by S. Gunasekaran (CPI) who said the government should adopt some legal measure that would once and for all put an end to all efforts to revive the Legislative Council.

Ms. Jayalalithaa recalled that her party's legislator, now Agriculture Minister, K. A. Sengottaiyan, had, while participating in the debate on the April 2010 resolution moved by the DMK regime, raised the question “Why is the government adopting such a resolution in its last days?” “The then Chief Minister, Mr. Karunanidhi, had replied that it was the people who will decide whose ‘last days' were at hand. This verdict is now out. And through this verdict, the people have endorsed the view that there is no need for a Council in Tamil Nadu,” she said.

She said only six States in India still had Legislative Councils, whereas 28 did not. These Councils were bodies created on the basis of the report of the Montague-Chelmsford reforms. “Many well-meaning people felt that these Councils were created as rival chambers to democratically constituted Assemblies under British rule. Even in 1932, this House had adopted a resolution that said the constitution of a second chamber was unnecessary and undesirable,” Ms. Jayalalithaa said. Most people holding progressive views were of the opinion that the Upper House was unnecessary. B.R. Ambedkar had considered the Councils as temporary bodies and declared that they could be abolished if deemed unnecessary.

S. Ramachandran (Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam) recalled that he had a role in the abolition of the Council in 1986. A second chamber was needed only where multiple ethnicities lived in the same geographical area and Tamil Nadu did not need one. He appealed to the Chief Minister to follow up the matter with the Centre so that Parliament adopted the required legislation to abolish the Council.

C.K. Thamizharasan (RPI), R. Sarathkumar (All India Samathuva Makkal Katchi) and M.H. Jawahirullah (Manithaneya Makkal Katchi) supported the resolution, holding that the Council was a waste of time and money. They said it was often used as a backdoor entry into the legislature and added that there had been no decline in administrative or legislative standards in Tamil Nadu since the abolition of the Council in 1986.

Mr. Gunasekaran and P. Dillibabu (CPI-M) said the idea of having a Legislative Council had its roots in a feudal and pro-monarchy mindset and supported its abolition.