PUDUCHERRY: It’s time for the carrot after the stick. Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi has decided to create a report card of sorts for each MLA by instituting a performance-based award for legislators based on the rating by the people of their constituencies.
The cut-off is 70 per cent. There will be no grace marks. It goes without saying that even CM V Narayanasamy will be judged, since he too is a legislator. After faulting MLAs for not accompanying her on regular field visits or addressing complaints, or involving themselves in addressing Swachh Bharat initiatives and community development work in their constituencies, Bedi hit upon this new idea to get them involved.
Taking her cue a from former Chennai mayor and DMK MLA MA Subramanian mobilising residents to launch civic improvement works in Saidapet Assembly constituency, she mooted the award. “What if every MLA in Puducherry does this (a la Subramanian). The UT will be clean… with minimum support of public funds,” she mused in a series of WhatsApp posts. “We would like to get going on this with people’s participation. The parameters will be identified and then people can be asked to rate their respective MLAs.” Only those with over 70 per cent rating will qualify for an award. There can be more than one MLA.
The more the better, she said, adding that the date of the award would be decided in due course.
The assessment will be done online, though the process is being fine-tuned. The rating will be available on the Raj Nivas website. However, legislators here are not amused. Congress MLA and parliamentary secretary to the chief minister, K Lakshminarayanan, saw in it yet another attempt by Bedi to abuse her powers.
“Very few people are familiar with online assessment and only those following the Lt Governor on social media or online will respond. This is not real assessment by the people. It is like a sample survey, which often gives wrong results,” he said. Besides most people are not competent to answer questionnaire, he pointed out.
“After criticising MLAs on the social media, she has no right to give awards to them,” remarked AIADMK Legislative party leader A Anbazhagan. But Bedi brushed all that aside, saying any new initiative would have a flip side. “We can start this and see how it goes and assess it as we go along,” she said.