North-South politics hogged the limelight towards the end of the 17th Lok Sabha. First, Congress MP from Karnataka, D K Suresh, said that the people of South India might have to demand a separate country if “the injustice of not providing the rightful share of taxes (to the southern states) continued”. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah led a protest in Delhi on the same subject. There was also a protest meeting in Delhi by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on the issue of federalism.

Sixty-six years earlier, an Independent Member of Parliament had an idea to bring both parts of the country together – hold a session of Parliament in the southern part of the country.

In 1958, the voters of Gurgaon, then part of Punjab, elected an Independent candidate, Prakash Vir Shastri, to represent them in Lok Sabha. The election had become necessary to fill the vacancy caused by the death of independent India’s first education minister, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. One scholar pointed out that Shastri’s electoral success was due to the support he received from the Jana Sangh, the BJP’s predecessor.

Parliamentary records indicate that Shastri, who served four terms in Parliament, was an active legislator. A year after being elected to Lok Sabha, Shri Shastri gave a notice for discussion in Lok Sabha that stated, “This House is of the opinion that one session of Lok Sabha is held in South India at Hyderabad or Bangalore every year.” Other MPs had also given similar notices in the past, but Shastri’s notice was successful in a ballot and picked for discussion on the floor of the House.

A middle path

Opening the debate, Shastri marshalled data about the proposal’s feasibility. But the core of his argument was that such a move would help strengthen national integration. While some MPs supported the idea, others opposed it. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, also in his first term in Lok Sabha, proposed a middle path. He suggested that the government keep an open mind on the issue and form a committee to examine the idea. The government, however, opposed Shastri’s proposal on practicality, leading to its rejection by Lok Sabha.

But Shastri was persistent in getting Parliament to meet in a southern city. He would raise the issue again in 1963 and then introduce a private member Bill on the same subject in 1968. This time, the government agreed to constitute a committee of 18 MPs, with the mandate to “examine the feasibility and financial implications of the proposal to hold the session of Parliament annually in the South”. The committee had Shastri and other distinguished MPs like G S Dhillon, Rabi Ray (both became Speakers later) and K Hanumanthaiya (former Karnataka CM) as its members.

The committee wrote to different state governments, inviting their suggestions. It also visited Bangalore and Trivandrum, where the two state governments were enthusiastic about hosting a Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha session in their city. The governments of Mysore and Kerala put together detailed proposals for the infrastructure required (two legislative chambers, housing for presiding officers, MPs, ministers, government and secretariat staff, etc.) and the money needed to construct it. Kerala offered free land, and Mysore offered to create space in its newly built Vidhan Soudha building to accommodate a parliamentary session. The central government had to bear the cost (one-time Rs 16 crore and recurring Rs 1.25 crore annually) of developing and maintaining the infrastructure.

There was also a suggestion that to ease staffing requirements, a purely legislative session (without Question Hour) could be held outside of Delhi. However, the central government was opposed to this idea. It thought, “A Parliament session doing only legislative business would be considered a pale reflection of itself, lacking in teeth and leaving the opposition dissatisfied.”

Some states like Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Gujarat, Manipur, and Punjab opposed holding a Parliament session outside Delhi. Other than the logistical and procedural constraints, a more fundamental criticism came from Jammu and Kashmir. In its response to the committee, the state government stated that such a move would create pressure from other distant parts of the country to hold a session there. It said, “The financial implications of the proposal are, perhaps, the least important of the considerations; the most important is whether the holding of the session in the South today and maybe in the East and West a few years later will conduce to the efficient working of Parliament.”

‘Not feasible’

Considering all factors, the committee concluded that holding the session in Bangalore or Trivandrum was not feasible. The committee suggested that parliamentary committees could hold their meetings during the intersession period in the southern part of the country. Shri Prakash Vir Shastri agreed with the recommendations. But the idea of holding a parliament session in the South is rising again. Last month, Punjab Governor Banwari Lal Purohit suggested that Tamil Nadu could be the venue for a winter session of Parliament. Purohit had served as Governor of Tamil Nadu from 2017 to 2021. Addressing a Pongal event in Chandigarh, he said, “The weather here is much colder… Delhi is the capital… turn the key a little bit in Tamil Nadu so that a second capital is in Tamil Nadu… One session should be there also.”