Includes index.
Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee has dedicated over sixty years of his life in service of the country. He served the country as member of Parliament for five decades and as Prime Minister of India for six years. He is an orator par excellence, whose speeches are listened with attention by friends and foes inside and outside Parliament. He used the Parliament as an educational forum as well as political weapon and enhanced the prestige of parliamentary institution. He did not mince words when criticism is due or warning necessary. But his criticism has not hurt his opponents. His sharp intellect and wit is almost tailor-made for parliamentary debate.
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To mark the 87th birthday of former Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a collection of the bills presented by him in Parliament A CONSTRUCTIVE PARLIAMENTARIAN will be released by his close associate, Senior BJP leader and former Deputy Prime Minister Shri LK Advani on 25th December, 2011 at 5.00 pm at Siri Fort Auditorium, New Delhi in the august presence of Senior leaders Shri Nitin Gadkari, Smt Sushma Swaraj, Shri Arun Jaitley, Shri Sharad Yadav, Shri Manohar Joshi to name a few. The collection, edited by Dr. N.M. Ghatate and published by Ocean Books, New Delhi is organised into four parts, containing Amendments to Constitution, various Acts and Bills introduced by Shri Vajpayee in Parliament. Part-I – Judiciary and Fundamental Rights; Part-II – Electoral Reforms; Part-III – Welfare Legislation and Part-IV – Other Important Legislation.

As a Prime Minister, Atalji also proved to be an achiever par excellence. He gave nuclear dimension to India’s military power without fear of sanctions but also established close friendly relations with President Clinton of the U.S. and other neighbouring nations. His domestic achievements were starting highway quadrangle with rural road connectivity, Chandrayan programme, linking rivers to solve irrigation and flood problems, cheap and speedy communication system and establishing ‘Sagar Mala’ to connect 4000 kms. of coast-line. He made India a food grain exporter, a major out-sourcing country and enriched the country with over billion dollar foreign exchange reserves.

However his constructive role as a Parliamentarian is hidden in the documents of Parliament and is not so well-known. He introduced 22 Bills in all including 20 when in opposition of which nine were Constitutional Amendment Bills and 2 when he was the Foreign Minister of India. They show his painstaking exercise in strengthening the democratic foundation of our country, his deep concern for health and welfare of the people, faith in independence of judiciary, taming money power in elections and above all human touch towards weak and handicapped people. The fact that some Bills were accepted or rejected or could not come for discussion and lapsed because of dissolution of Parliament is of little significance.

In the Foreword to this book, Advaniji writes, “Atalji never hesitated to voice the opinion of the man standing on the lowest rung of the society. He presented many bills in the Parliament, for the welfare of this common man. It gives me great pleasure that the original forms of the bills presented by Atalji in the Parliament and the debate on them, after being edited by Appa Ghatate, are being published. With the publication of this edition, viewpoints of Atalji and his contemporary Parliamentarians will be available for generations to come.”

pt. 1. Judiciary and fundamental rights -- pt. 2. Electoral reforms -- pt. 3. Welfare legislations -- pt. 4. Other important legislations.

Texts of bills introduced by Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the Parliament and related debates on the bills.