e-Sansad & e-Vidhan & Whip

Last Updated on February 7, 2018 by Bharat Saini

Rolling out of e-Sansad and e-Vidhan in Parliament and State Legislatures has been proposed to digitize and make their functioning paperless. This was announced by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar after inaugurating the 18th All India Whips’ Conference in Udaipur on 8 January, 2018.

• e-Sansad and e-Vidhan are mission mode projects of Government of India under Digital India, to make the functioning of Parliament and State Legislatures paperless.
• These projects would make the functioning of Parliament and State Legislatures participative, responsive, transparent, productive and more accountable to the public and make the entire Legislative process more efficient.
• This environment friendly initiative is in line with the ‘Go Green’ initiative of the Government.

The 18th All India Whips’ Conference organised by Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs (MoPA) on 8 & 9 January 2018 focused on the efficient functioning of legislatures. Delegates participating in made suggestions and recommendations for making the rolling out of e-Sansad and e-Vidhan a success.  It also made other recommendations for smooth and efficient working of Parliament and the state legislatures in the light of the experience gained by the whips.

• A Whip is an important member of a political party’s parliamentary body, having a central role in ‘Floor Management’ in both the Houses of Parliament and is responsible for discipline within the party.
• Whips’ main job is ensuring that their members in Parliament and legislature vote in line with the party’s official policy on important issues and make sure that the members turn out for important votes.
• However, the office of whip is neither mentioned in constitution of India nor in the Rules of the House nor in the Parliamentary Statue.
• It is based on conventions of parliamentary government.
• Such an importance of Whips in the Parliamentary system had been acknowledged by organizing the First All India Whips Conference at Indore in 1952, in the very first year of general elections to the first Lok Sabha.

The 16^th and 17^th Whips’ conferences were held in Goa in 2014 and Visakhapatnam in 2015, respectively.