The Assembly belongs to the people and they have the right to shape its agenda (EDITORIAL)
First, one political party in the Opposition did it, and then another. They announced that they were willing to take up citizens’ issues during the forthcoming session of the State Assembly. Both AAP and Vijai Sardesai’s GFP have shared their contact details where citizens can send issues and questions they want raised in the Assembly. The GFP leader is also interacting with citizens these days. This has been announced earlier too, and it might be interesting to evaluate how citizens respond to such possibilities.
Democracy means representation. The Assembly is where laws are made, budgets get passed, and policies debated. If citizens’ concerns are not heard in such spaces, then the system risks becoming a closed club of political elites disconnected from the wider public.
Of course, given Goa’s size, there is always the chance that issues get directly noticed by the politicians themselves. But before we blame the latter for not being effective enough, concerned citizens – and everyone should be one – have the right, nay duty, to place squarely on the agenda their issues.
Local issues need local solutions. Likewise, such a campaign can help push towards transparency and accountability. When an MLA raises citizens’ concerns in the House, these become part of the official record. It creates pressure on ministers and departments to act. It can always be argued that this works only in theory; in practice, issues get neglected, overlooked and ignored. But much depends on the efforts put into the same.
Questions in the Assembly, calling attention motions, Zero Hour mentions, and even private members’ bills and resolutions are the routes through which issues can be raised. It is also possible to raise a formal citizens’ petition to the Committee on Petitions of the Assembly. Experiences from elsewhere have shown how the media, RTI (Right to Information) findings and public events can be used to amplify issues; this forces MLAs to respond.
Opposition parties, especially the smaller ones, which are keen to expand their footprint and enhance relevance, seem to acknowledge that citizens’ concerns matter. In recent years, many here have been doing their homework and pushing for a better level of services and infrastructure. All things being equal, not all issues are equal in getting political attention. Some issues feature more often in our political discourse: government jobs and unemployment, mining, tourism, infrastructure projects, power or water and garbage issues, the drug trade and crime, casino policy, law and order, flooding or other disasters. Even these very issues often lack sufficient follow-up, detailed debate or long-term policy planning.
On the other hand, quite a few issues get neglected: affordable housing for locals, education quality (especially in government institutions), land issues or grabs, comunidade land, public health, mental health concerns, agricultural decline, rural out-migration to urban Goa, garbage generated from tourism, heritage destruction, traditional fisherfolk rights, youth struggling to get jobs on par with qualifications, digital exclusion and the lacunae in e-governance.
Citizens know best where they feel the pinch. Now, with the chance to raise their issues, they need to rise to the occasion too. They need to move past despondency. Proactive citizens can help nourish democracy. It is also the responsibility of the citizen to raise issues in a democratic manner in the interest of the state and its people.
