By R. Suryamurthy
If elections are the theatre of democracy, legislatures are meant to be its workshop—the place where power is questioned, policy is tested, and governments are forced to explain themselves. Yet, as several states head into high-stakes assembly elections in 2026, that workshop looks increasingly deserted. The noise of campaigning—sharp slogans, welfare claims, ideological sparring—masks a quieter but more consequential shift: India’s state assemblies are steadily losing their relevance as arenas of scrutiny.
The evidence, drawn from recent legislative performance analyses by PRS Legislative Research, is not dramatic in the way political crises are. There are no walkouts that threaten governments, no constitutional breakdowns that grab headlines. Instead, there is something more subtle—and arguably more dangerous. Assemblies are meeting less often, sitting for shorter periods, and passing laws with a speed that borders on the mechanical. What should be a site of friction has become, in many cases, a conveyor belt.
Consider West Bengal, where elections are currently underway. Over its five-year term, the Assembly met for just 166 days, averaging around 33 days annually. On paper, that might still appear functional. But the real story lies in how those days were used. Sittings lasted barely two-and-a-half hours on average—far below the norms set by its own rules. More strikingly, over 90% of Bills were introduced and passed on the same day. The committee system, which is supposed to act as a filter for legislative quality, has effectively vanished; no Bill has been referred to a committee in over a decade.
This is not merely an administrative choice. It is a political one. A legislature that meets infrequently and legislates instantly is not exercising oversight—it is endorsing decisions already taken elsewhere.
Tamil Nadu, often held up as a model of governance capacity, tells a similar story, albeit with its own nuances. The Assembly met for 155 days over the same period—the lowest for a full-term legislature in the state’s history. Nearly four out of five Bills were passed within a day of introduction. Not a single one was sent to a committee. Even the symbolic space for dissent has shrunk. Private members’ business, once an avenue for non-ministerial legislators to introduce ideas and challenge the government, has all but disappeared. The legislative agenda is now almost entirely controlled by the executive.
Assam offers a different, but no less telling, variation. Here, the Assembly meets for about 20 days a year—an even sharper contraction of legislative time. But instead of spreading business across sittings, the state has normalised bursts of hyper-legislation. On one day in December 2022, 36 Bills were passed in a single sitting. Across the term, more than 80% of Bills were cleared within a week of introduction. The optics are of efficiency; the reality is a system where scrutiny struggles to keep pace with output.
Then there is Kerala, the outlier that complicates the narrative. Its Assembly met for over 200 days during the same period, with sittings stretching to six hours on average. More than 80% of Bills were referred to committees. Budget discussions ran for weeks, not days. On the surface, this looks like a legislature doing what it is supposed to do—debate, examine, question. But even here, the pressure to bypass deliberation is visible, particularly in the heavy reliance on ordinances during the early part of the term. Kerala may be resisting the broader trend, but it is not entirely insulated from it.
Taken together, these states reveal a pattern that is difficult to dismiss as coincidence. Legislative time is shrinking. Deliberation is thinning. The executive is gaining ground.
Nowhere is this shift more troubling than in the handling of budgets—the most fundamental expression of governmental priorities. In West Bengal, an average of 65% of expenditure was approved without discussion. That means the majority of public spending, funded by taxpayers, passed through the Assembly without being debated. In Tamil Nadu, while departmental budgets are formally discussed, the time allocated for such scrutiny has declined over the years. Kerala again stands apart with longer discussions and committee inputs, but it is increasingly the exception rather than the rule.
This is not a technical problem; it is a political one. When budgets are passed without debate, the legislature’s most critical function—holding the executive accountable for how it spends public money—is effectively neutralised. The message is clear: decisions are made outside, and the Assembly is there to formalise them.
Overlaying this institutional drift is a growing confrontation between elected governments and Governors, particularly in opposition-ruled states. Bills passed by Assemblies are increasingly being delayed at the stage of gubernatorial assent, sometimes for over a year. In Tamil Nadu, this standoff escalated into a constitutional battle, drawing in the Supreme Court. West Bengal has seen similar tensions, particularly over legislation that seeks to reduce the Governor’s role in university administration. Kerala, too, briefly entered this arena before stepping back.
These conflicts are no longer confined to legal debates; they have become central to political messaging. Regional parties frame them as evidence of federal overreach, arguing that the Centre is using Governors to stall state legislation. The Union government and its allies counter that Governors are exercising legitimate constitutional powers. Lost in this exchange is the legislature itself, caught between an assertive executive and a politically emboldened gubernatorial office.
For ruling parties, the defence of this new legislative culture is straightforward: speed equals delivery. In an era of high expectations and relentless electoral cycles, governments argue that they cannot afford the luxury of prolonged debate. Laws must be passed quickly, policies implemented swiftly, and results delivered on time. Efficiency, in this narrative, becomes the ultimate virtue.
But this argument carries within it a dangerous assumption—that scrutiny is a hindrance rather than a safeguard. Democracies are not designed to be frictionless. The delays, debates, and committee reviews that slow down legislation are not inefficiencies; they are the mechanisms through which power is questioned and refined. Remove them, and governance may become faster, but it also becomes less accountable.
Opposition parties have begun to seize on this point, framing the decline of legislatures as a symptom of democratic erosion. They speak of “rubber stamp assemblies,” where laws are passed without discussion and dissent has little space to breathe. Yet, their challenge is translating this critique into electoral currency. Voters are more likely to respond to tangible outcomes—jobs, subsidies, infrastructure—than to abstract concerns about institutional health.
This creates a political paradox. The weakening of legislatures is real, measurable, and significant. But it does not automatically translate into political cost. As long as governments deliver visible benefits, the erosion of procedural safeguards may remain a secondary concern for large sections of the electorate.
And yet, the long-term implications are difficult to ignore. Institutions do not fail overnight; they fade gradually. The legislature, stripped of its deliberative function, risks becoming irrelevant—not in form, but in substance. It continues to meet, to pass laws, to approve budgets. But it no longer shapes outcomes in a meaningful way.
Kerala’s more deliberative model offers a glimpse of an alternative path, but it also highlights how unusual such an approach has become. The broader trajectory is clear: towards faster, more centralised decision-making, with fewer institutional checks along the way.
As voters head to the polls in 2026, they are being asked to choose between competing political visions—different leaders, different policies, different promises. But beneath those choices lies a deeper question about the kind of democracy they want. Do they prioritise speed and decisiveness, even if it comes at the cost of scrutiny? Or do they value a system where decisions are slower, messier, but subject to greater accountability?
This is not a question that will be explicitly debated in campaign rallies. It will not feature in manifestos or television debates. But it is embedded in the way governments function and in the way voters respond to that functioning.
If the current trend continues, India’s state legislatures will not disappear. They will remain in place, meeting periodically, passing laws, approving budgets. But their role will be transformed—from arenas of debate to instruments of confirmation. Power will reside increasingly with the executive, and the legislature will follow.
The danger is not that democracy will collapse. It is that it will become quieter, more streamlined, and less questioning. And in that silence, the space for accountability—the very essence of representative government—will continue to shrink.
Elections decide who holds power. Legislatures determine how that power is exercised. As the country votes in 2026, it may be worth asking whether the second question is slowly being taken out of the public’s hands. (IPA Service)
