Can our Parliamentary system be reformed?

In a Tehelka cover story, the Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has argued that the time has come for India to replace its Parliamentary system with a presidential one. This episode of India Tonight seeks to understand what his grounds for saying so and what are the advantages of having a president.

To debate this issue, Karan Thapar is joined by Lok Sabha MP, Shashi Tharoor himself. To counter his views, the Lok Sabha Leader of the Biju Janata Dal, Jay Panda. Below is an edited transcript of his interview. Also watch the accompanying video. Q: What are the principle areas where you believe the Parliamentary system has failed this country? Tharoor: I think the principle problem we have is that the Parliamentary system elects a legislature in order to form the executive. So what happens is you elect people not because of a particular talent for legislation or care about specific policy issues, but because they are hoping to form the government. As we have now entered the period of coalition governments, the government emerging from this process is obliged to spend most of its time and energy maintaining its majority and staying in power rather than governing and being accountable to the voters for what he has done. So in other words, instead of electing an individual who is there for four or five years whatever the state of his majority in the legislature, and who can be held accountable for what he/she has accomplished in that time, we have a government that can rise and fall in the states as well as in the center depending on the fickle news of coalition partners, policies that may or may not be successfully adopted because coalition partners may not like them at any given time and essentially governance and performance coming below politics and survival. Q: How much of that critic of the Indian Parliamentary system do you agree with and then do you think the situation can be remedied by reform rather than by changing the system altogether? Panda: In my first term in Parliament, I used to think very much like Shashi. In fact, the presidential system does have certain advantages which we ought to incorporate in our system. But I have moved away from endorsing a complete switch over to the presidential system for a couple of reasons. First of all, look at the United States today. It is in complete legislative gridlock despite having a presidential system. So not much different from what we have. Also let