The conduct of Kerala legislators leave much to be desired. They need to behave in the house. 

Dignity, decency, and decorum are the basic elements of proceedings in parliament as well as legislatures, the temples of democracy. How the lawmakers behave and what they speak in the Houses are the benchmarks of the country’s culture. If this is taken in its true spirit, the behavior of the members of the Kerala Legislative Assembly lies in a quagmire. Viewers were alarmed and frightened when they saw the hooliganism by elected members vandalizing the Speaker’s podium and destroying

costly equipment like computer and television screens inside the House.

The video of a minister in the present government demolishing and pulling down the Speaker’s chair went viral as the then Opposition tried to block the then finance minister K M Mani from presenting the budget. The Government had to cut a sorry figure when even the Supreme Court dismissed its petition to withdraw the criminal complaint filed by the legislature secretariat against the members who perpetrated the ruckus inside the House.  If one took recourse to the view that the unfortunate events dating back to 2015 were a once-in-a- lifetime incident, the recent events that took place in the House prove that the members are out not to remove the blot on the face of democracy. The sights of Opposition and Treasury benches raising slogans against each other may be a unique event in other States but not in Kerala. It has become a regular

feature as the ruling CPI(M) and Congress fight it out in the House as part of political one- upmanship. Last week saw yet another shocking event as a CPI(M) member belittled and ridiculed K K Rema, an opposition MLA. “You have become a widow because of fate. You alone are responsible for it,” said M M Mani while speaking in the House. The language of Mani, a former minister, pained many people as Rema’s husband T P

Chandrasekharan, was a CPI (M) leader who was murdered in a gruesome manner by his party leaders. When CPI leader Annie Raja bemoaned the quality of Mani’s words, he turned against her and used invectives against her. Political parties that were at the forefront to challenge the Lok Sabha Speaker’s decision to categorize certain words as unparliamentary have a responsibility to set a trend in parliamentary discourse. The Congress and the CPI (M), the saviors and guardians of secularism should show the world that they are serious in their opposition to BJP’s Hindutva politics. Otherwise, it will end up as Gusthi in Kerala and Dosthi in Delhi. It does not synch well.