Expressing anguish over the recent happenings in Parliament, Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu said political parties should move away from the “current environment of settling scores”.

“Can we not end this spiral where each party adopts the strategy of ‘I disrupt because you have done it before’?” he asked at an event here on Sunday. The trend of unruly behaviour and unparliamentary language in legislatures is very disturbing, Venkaiah observed.

The Vice-President quoted Mahatma Gandhi to state that there is no place for violence in legislatures. He urged legislators to argue with the force of logic and conviction rather than stall proceedings through brute force.

He was addressing the first National Consultation Conference on ‘Swaraj to Suraj’ here. Union ministers dealing with rural and urban development who participated voiced serious concern over less than the desired progress towards empowerment of rural and urban local bodies even after 25 years of legislation by Parliament.

They urged the States to shed their reluctance in strengthening local governments for better implementation on development and welfare initiatives and for better service delivery.

The theme of the first of the six conferences being organised by the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) was ‘Strengthening of Local Governments’. Naidu is the President of IIPA.

Dwelling on the issues of local governance, Naidu, who is a former Minister of both rural and urban development, urged the local leadership to have political will to mobilise the much required resources by raising taxes and levies by ensuring delivery of quality services.

Union Minister of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Narendra Singh Tomar that ₹2,00,292 cr is being transferred to villages during 2015-20 as against ₹60,000 cr in the previous five years.

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