82 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ দ্বিতীয় খন্ড 19. Sir Winston Churchill' is reported to have described the duties of a member of parliament as follows: "The first duty of a Member of Parliament is to do what he thinks in his faithful and disinterested judgment is right and necessary for the honor and safety of Great Britain. His second duty is to his constituents, of whom he is the representative but not the delegate. Burke's famous declaration on this subject is well known. It is only in the third place that his duty to the party organization or programme takes rank. All these three loyalties should be observed, but there is no doubt of the order in which they stand under any healthy manifestation of democracy." The members of the legislatures in Pakistan, on an average, with a few honorable exceptions, did not regard anyone of these duties as binding on them. They were, on the other hand, mainly concerned with their individual interests. Even in the first year of Pakistan, when the enthusiasm of the people for building up the new country was at the highest, personal rivalry started amongst the members of the party in power. This was more evident in the former Punjab and Sind provinces, where changes look place within the same ministry even in the early stages. In East Pakistan, the situation was a little better, but even there by the end of 1949, one of the ministers had to resign, and a tribunal, appointed to inquire into the allegations of misconduct, maladministration and corruption, recorded several findings against him. Earlier, in 1948, the Chief Minister of Sind was dismissed on similar charges, nearly half of which were held by a tribunal, appointed to try him, to have been established. Two other ministers of Sind, who were proceeded against under the Public and Representative Offices Disqualification Act, were found guilty of misconduct. The East Bengal Police Committee, in its report of 1953, refers to an instance; it had come across, of undue interference with the police and magistracy, by a minister in a case of rioting and theft. The minister who interfered was not in charge of Law and Order and yet he sent for the police and the District Magistrate to the Secretariat and had a long discussion with them regarding the grant of bail to the ac accused who was ultimately released on bail owing to the interest shown by the minister. Obviously, the person accused in that case had influence with the party in power. In 1948, the Muslim League party, which was in power throughout Pakistan, lost a bye-election in East Pakistan. Since then there were as many as 34 vacancies, but no other bye-election was held though the party remained in power (ill the beginning of 1954, Keeping these seats vacant was clearly due to the apprehension that the party would lose in the bye-elections. This was an example of a party contravening the conventions and principles of representative government in order to keep itself in power, 20. The administration of East Pakistan, in the days of the Muslim League ministry, was, on the whole, not as unsatisfactory as during the period of the other ministries which came into power as a result of the 1954 election. At that election there was a United Front consisting of different parties, the common object of which appears to have been only to drive the Muslim League out of power. In this they succeeded but as the union was not on any solid basis the United Front showed signs of disunity soon after its success. Within a
- Parliamentary Affairs, Vol. 9 (1955-56), p. 238.
