Five months after he questioned Parliamentarians’ powers to increase their own salaries, BJP MP Varun Gandhi has written to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to initiate a movement to prompt economically advantaged members to forego their remuneration in the wake of widening inequality gap in the country.
Varun, MP from UP’s Sultanpur, suggested that the Speaker could “introduce a fresh narrative focused on an alternative strategy rather than the current practice of arrogating of salaries at will to ourselves” if relinquishing salary is “too much to ask for”. Pointing out that the number of MPs who own assets worth over a crore has seen a
sharp rise from 319 in 2009 to 449 in the 16th Lok Sabha, he wrote: “While I realize that not all MPs enjoy higher economic positions and some depend on salary for their livelihood, my request to you Madam Speaker is to initiate a movement, aimed at the economically advantaged MPs, to forego our remuneration for the remainder of this 16th Lok Sabha.”
