Why in News ?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi never stops surprising the nation with optics. On June 7, 2024, at the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance meeting of newly elected Members of Parliament, Mr. Modi, upon his arrival, paid his respects to the Constitution of India by touching the book to his forehead. Interestingly, the setting of the meeting was the Samvidhan Sadan of the newly built Parliament.
Today’s News :
But does Mr. Modi respect the Constitution of India in letter and spirit? His actions so far as the Prime Minister since 2014, or for that matter as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, show otherwise.
In a parliamentary democracy, the Prime Minister is only the head of the Council of Ministers. Article 74 of the Constitution mandates: “There shall be a Council of Ministers with the Prime Minister at the head to aid and advise the President who shall, in the exercise of his functions, act in accordance with such advice.”
Pitching for ‘responsibility
B.R. Ambedkar and his fellow framers wisely chose the parliamentary system over the presidential system because “Looking at it from the point of view of responsibility, a non-Parliamentary Executive being independent of Parliament tends to be less responsible to the Legislature, while a Parliamentary Executive being more dependent upon a majority in Parliament become more responsible.”
It was hoped that the assessment of responsibility of the executive is both daily and periodic; the daily assessment is done by Members of Parliament in the form of questions, resolutions, no-confidence motions, adjournment motions and debates on addresses. Periodic assessment is done by the electorate every five years.
Thus, the framers preferred “more responsibility to more stability”.
On June 9, 2024, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Ministers were administered the oath of office and secrecy by the President of India.
But it was only after the first cabinet meeting on the evening of June 10 that the portfolios of Ministers were announced.
Yet, on the same day, the Prime Minister cleared the file that sanctioned the release of the seventeenth instalment of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi, the farmers’ welfare scheme, for ₹20,000 crore.