Mr. President, Sir, it is becoming more and more clear that the provision of the Second Chamber in the States is proceeding more and more because of the distrust of adult franchise and nobody has made it clearer than Mr. Brajeshwar Prasad who thinks that the country is likely to go to dogs if there is no provision for the Second Chamber with more powers. My justification for intervention at this stage is only this, that the provision that we are now considering discloses that the only functions that the Second Chamber is going to perform is merely to delay legislation. Mr. Brajeshwar Prasad is quite correct when he said that we have not left any effective powers in its hands to that extent, but the question arises whether, for the sake of merely delaying legislation all this paraphernalia of a Second Chamber with all the difficulties it has met with and the difficulties also about giving proper representation and not finding sufficient and proper interests which should be represented on this Second Chamber, it is worthwhile to have the Second Chamber at all. The delay also has been minimised by the provisions that are now embodied in Article 172. The delay would be at the most of about six months. The Second Chamber has no power of initiating Money Bills and the only function, therefore, that it is going to perform is to delay a Bill that is passed by the Legislative Assembly and with which it does not agree. I think, Sir, that the expenditure of money as well as energy that this will involve is not at all commensurate with the insignificance of the functions that are being allotted to it. Since we have not even decided about the composition, about the nature of representation as well as even the membership, even at this late stage, I would like to appeal, if it is possible, that the Second Chambers in all the States may be dropped altogether.
