Shift from Lok Sabha reduces accountability

The number of Rajya Sabha MPs in the Union cabinet has been rising steadily over the years. Nehru's first cabinet had very few members from the Upper House.
Even in Indira Gandhi's time the representation of Elders was minimal. Since then the numbers have grown. Atal Bihari Vajpayee had eight Rajya Sabha members in his cabinet.
With Manmohan Singh's latest expansion their number has reached an all-time high.There are 11 members from the Upper House today comprising a whopping 32 per cent of the cabinet. This is not a healthy trend.
India is a parliamentary democracy. Those governing the country should be peoples' representatives. The practice of having too many Rajya Sabha MPs as ministers violates the principle of democratic representation.
The council of ministers is ultimately responsible to the Lok Sabha, not the Rajya Sabha, which is why a vote of no-confidence can be moved only in Lok Sabha.
Giving cabinet berths to MPs who are neither elected by the people nor accountable to them amounts to defrauding democracy.
Rajya Sabha ministers who owe their office to party bosses or business lobbies are more likely to do their bidding than safeguard peoples' interests.
One could of course argue that in today's globalised polity we need specialists to govern and safeguard the nation's interests in a competitive world.
There is no dearth of such expertise within the ranks of the Lok Sabha. Then why opt for those who are not elected representatives of the people and therefore not accountable to them?
What is worse, many of these cabinet ministers are those who contested and lost the election. Bringing them into the cabinet through the Rajya Sabha is showing disregard for the people's verdict. Politi-cal propriety demands predominance of
Lok Sabha in the council of ministers. The present trend of having a large number of ministers from the Upper House is undermining democracy and will lead to institutional erosion.