Delhi Speaker wants TV licence for Assemblies

Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goyal has made a strong pitch for public owned TV channels while speaking at a conference of Assembly speakers in Gandhinagar.

He said every Vidhan Sabha in the country should have its own TV channel on the lines of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha TV channels.

The conference was inaugurated by Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Friday.
Goyal appealed to the Lok Sabha Speaker to initiate measures to make each legislature “automatically” qualify for a TV licence, according to a Delhi government statement.

Since the proposed channels will be on the lines of LSTV and RSTV, there should not be any problem in granting the licence, Goyal said at the “78th Conference of Presiding Officers of Legislative Bodies in India”, being held at Gandhinagar.

He also sought the help of Lok Sabha Speaker in getting necessary clearances from the Centre in making legislatures paperless through e-vidhan project for which Delhi Assembly is one of the applicants.

“Recalling that Sarkaria Commission had proposed consultation with Chief Minister of the State, Vice-President of India and Speaker, Lok Sabha, he appealed that there has to be a fair mechanism to appoint Governors to avoid subversion of Constitution by Governors as is witnessed in Arunachal Pradesh,” the statement said.

“Mr Ram Nivas Goyal also endorsed the views expressed by Speaker of West Bengal Assembly and Chairman of Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council who were critical of encroachment of judiciary into the arena earmarked exclusively for Legislature,” it said.

He also said that there should be a Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
The Delhi Speaker gave the example of Delhi Assembly, where the Leader of Opposition is from the BJP, which has only three seats in the 70-member Delhi Assembly.

There is no Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha as Congress fell short of the required 55 by 11 seats.

According to Parliament rules, a party in the Lok Sabha must have at least 10 per cent of total seats to get this post.

“He (Delhi Speaker) pointed out that he did not choose to apply non existent 10 per cent rule which was invoked earlier in the 16th Lok Sabha, to deny the position to BJP in Delhi,” the Delhi government said.