Sir, I agree with most of what my honourable Friend Mr. Deshbandhu Gupta said yesterday. I think it will not be quite fair for this august House to leave these small islands of slavery as they have been in the past. Swaraj has come and every province has got some representation, but isn’t it a pity that these small areas in the country shall remain governed by the service men mostly? I refuse to believe that any Minister in the Centre could look into the details of the local administration. I have seen the Government of the Centre run for about two years now. It is not possible for any Minister to look into the smallest little detail of administration; even in respect of their own little business, I find them unable to cope up. They are too busy. I therefore submit that so long as these small areas are kept attached to the Centre under the administration of the Central Government these people will never get their political rights and Swaraj will remain denied to these small areas. I do not think there is any logic behind the argument advanced by Pandit Nehru that almost the whole of New Delhi being the property of the Government of India, no separate Government need be set up for Delhi. What is this? I cannot understand it. If Delhi is to be treated as London or New York you can do it. I can understand that. But even in London there are local authorities and people have their voice in the administration, whereas in Delhi people have none. Instead of keeping these small areas as Lieutenant Governor’s province or Chief Commissioner’s States, I would really prefer their being amalgamated with neighbouring States. Coorg could go into its neighbouring State. If we are not going to decide this because it is controversial, then what are we going to decide? This is a matter for the Constituent Assembly to decide. After all the decision of the Legislative Assembly or Parliament will not command the same respect as that of the Constituent Assembly, because decisions of Parliament are as a rule party decisions. The cannot have the same force as decisions of this august All-party House, for every Parliament goes by the vote of the majority party. There is a majority party, a leader of the majority party and there is a Whip of the majority party. Even today if I were to sit in Parliament I shall not be able to exercise my vote as freely as I can do here for I can flout the decisions of the party in the Constituent Assembly. The Congress Party in the Constituent Assembly is only a party of convenience-it is just to facilitate matters and to help us arriving at decisions. I do not take its Whip as a mandatory whip and I do not obey it, unless I am myself convinced of it. In the Constituent Assembly no party can have a bigger voice than the voice of the individual for everybody represents the whole nation here speaks in the interests of the nation as a whole. But in the Parliament, Members have to go by their party whips, and therefore a decision of a Parliament is always necessarily a decision of the majority party. That decision cannot therefore have the same dignity or the sanctity attached to it as the decision of the Constituent Assembly.
