Speaker J&K Assembly, kavinder Gupta was today elected as regional representative from Indian region for the term 2016-19 of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) by general assembly at the closing ceremony of the conference.
The Speaker was unanimously elected by the General Assembly and will succeed MLA, Punjab, Dr. Charnjit Atwal, who held the office for three years starting from 2013.
While addressing the parliamentarians and legislatures from the participating regions of the globe, Gupta said, “It is indeed a great honor to be elected as regional representative of our region and I extend my heartfelt gratitude to all the members for the confidence they have shown on me”.
“On behalf of my region I assure that our region is committed to ensure that the goals which we have set for ourselves are taken forward in a constructive manner by way of ensuring good governance, strengthening the democracy and minimizing the human rights violation in our respective regions”, he added.
The Speaker said that the agenda for the next Commonwealth Parliamentary association (CPA) meet which calls for shared understanding of parliamentary democracy in over 180 commonwealth parliaments and legislatures, peer to peer learning, opportunity to participate and contribute to the development of best practices and standard setting for commonwealth parliaments, legislatures and parliamentarians will be a real learning worth capturing through the diverse experiences of parliamentarians across the commonwealth nations
He said that the CPA provides us a very realistic and genuine platform for learning through the sharing of ideas by nurturing an open and wide ranging understanding of parliamentary democracy that takes account of national context and also expand the comparative knowledge on parliamentary strengthening by recognizing the diverse challenges that many commonwealth jurisdictions face.