In the wake of the Anna euphoria, our elected representatives have been dubbed as corrupt and the Team Anna have  painted the parliamentarians and Politicians as criminals , corrupt, liars and gavars (coarse and without finesse), which to say the least is uncivilized. True Gandhians would not have used such language. India has its own constitution and several institutions have been enshrined like the executive, legislature and the judiciary and if they are corrupt then we have to find remedies within the framework of law and the constitution and not resort to extra constitutional remedies.    

We have elected representatives from the gram panchayat to the state assemblies and to the lok sabha and rajya sabha. We have about 500 and odd lok abhe members and 5,000 -odd state assemblies’ members and as many as over one lakh elected panchayat members across the country. Thus, we have a staggering number of roughly 2,15,340 and odd elected representatives in different constitutionally established bodies. Besides we have many other elected bodies like milk federations, sugar cooperatives etc where members are elected to protect farming interests etc. These elected representatives constitute the “core decision group” who determine the content, pace, and the direction of the country’s governance process. What are the methods by which their promises and performances are judged? Who assesses their performance? What performance indicators are available to evaluate their work? What are the instruments presently employed for monitoring their work in their respective constituencies? MPs have their own MP Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) under which every MP gets as much as Rs 5 crore per year and no one know how that money is spent. There are rare mementos at bus stops and the likes claiming that the work has been funded by a particular MP under MPLADS. Similarly, huge development funds are given to the MLAs to develop their constituencies and no one knows how that money is spent.

These are some of the issues which citizens in a representative democratic form of government should be concerned with. We are more and more concerned with getting better   “Value” to the citizen’s franchise. At the end of tenure of every elected representative every citizen, who has exercised his/her franchise, is expected to know the tasks accomplished/not accomplished by the elected representatives. MPs and MLAs have a mix of public domain tasks and they spend more time in their own “personal agendas” than in the public domain. These mixes of tasks do not lend themselves for quantification and easy evaluation and we have yet to see any indicators of performance assessment spelt out by MPs or by their party headquarters. In the absence of a formal mechanism to assess the performance of an MP, voters are to fall back on value judgments, image and visibility of the MP in his/her constituency and personal help rendered (specific relief). Some MPs/MLAs nurse their constituency by frequently visiting the area for official meetings or attending events like marriages and funeral ceremonies.

A time has come, when the image of our MPs and Legislators is going down in the wake of rampant corruption charges hurled at them, some founded and some unfounded, to develop a mechanism or a process by which an informed and objective account of the performance of the MP has to be presented at regular intervals of their five year tenure. This cannot be done   purely by the Political Party monitoring device or by sending observers of the Party at the time of election contest because it sans  objectivity and takes a party view of the performance of the MP.

Just as we have now a well established Social audit of  the flagship Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Programme across the country , there is an urgent need  to engage in the Social Audit of the performance of our Legislators across the country by well intentioned   and untainted public figures  at the grassroots .  Many civil society activists and the Legislators should come together and set up Social Audit Teams for their constituency to establish credibility. If we can do hundreds of environment audits in many controversial projects , we can definitely  do untainted and objective  Social Audits of the  performance of our MPs/MLAs  .When our  MPs/MLAs get elected, he/she should announce Social Audit Group drawn from the their constituencies representing cross-section of the Voters like landless  laborers, artisans, teachers, voluntary agencies, intellectuals, small traders and all those who constitute the “vote bank” in the constituency .This Social audit group should be free from party affiliation/loyalty. In the span of five years at least three Social audit reports should be presented to the voters. But the MPs/MLAs should share all the information to this Social audit group- greater the information sharing better the social audits.