RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, Nov.17: Jharkhand assembly speaker Rabindra Nath Mahto while participating in 82nd All India Presiding Officers’ Conference cum Centennial Celebrations Programme of All India Presiding Officers, at Shimla, counted his achievement as a speaker.
Those present at the conference included chairman Om Birla, Speaker Lok Sabha, Harivansh, deputy chairman, Rajya Sabha besides chief minister of Himachal Pradesh, Union Cabinet Ministers, officers of Lok Sabha Secretariat and others.
“During my tenure I had set my priorities threefold – 1. To utilise the maximum time of the session and make it more efficient and productive, for this purpose apart from other efforts we are also trying to implement e-vidhan in our assembly as early as possible. Efforts are being made by my secretariat in this direction and we are getting required support from the Central and the State Governments. 2. I have also decided to bring the house proceedings and other activities of the assembly before the common people. Taking this objective into account I started Jharkhand Vidhan Sabha TV on youtube and I am constantly trying to make it better and more beneficial to the people. 3. I also decided to make our younger generations more aware of our parliamentary procedures, so that on the one hand they will have greater faith in our democratic principles as well as we will be able to inculcate leadership qualities in them. Towards this goal, we organised a Chhatra Sansad in our assembly in which actual house proceedings were conducted by the students. They ran a question hour and a bill was introduced and passed by their assembly also. To signify the importance of the environment the theme of the event was Youth for Green Jharkhand and bill that was passed by this assembly was the Tree Conservation Bill. This house of our younger ones was also gender equal as more than 50% of participants were female. We have sent a proposal to organise an All-India event starting with 10 states,” Mahto said.
Earlier he discussed the importance of the programme.
“This event is historic in a true sense not only because 100 years ago in September 1921 the first presiding officers’ conference was held in Shimla but also because on 12th February, 1921 the foundation stone
of the present parliament house and then the central legislative assembly was laid by the Duke of Connaught, Prince Arthur. In six years’ time, when this building was inaugurated by then Viceroy Lord Irvin on 18th January 1927 the Chief architect of the building Herbert Baker presented Lord Irvin a key made of gold to open this building. Then neither Baker nor Irvin could imagine that they were opening the gate for India’s Independence. After 20 years in 1947, the Historic parliament house witnessed the historic speech of “tryst with destiny” of our first premier Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. The colonial masters built this building to cater to the requirement of Montague Chelmsford Reforms which had made the central assembly bicameral. This event is also historic because it was here in Shimla, in 1925 the Central Legislative Assembly met to elect Vithalbhai Patel, the President, the post equivalent to the present day,” he said.
He ended his speech with words of Gurudev Rabindra Nath Thakur.
“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, where knowledge is free, where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls, where words come out from the depth of truth, where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection, where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit, where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father let my country awake,” he quoted.
