Meet ‘Star Performer' and ‘Non-Performer' MPs of 16th Lok Sabha

New Delhi, Feb 14: On Wednesday, the current Lok Sabha (16th) concluded its last session. Now, the vital data and statistics of the 16th Lok Sabha is in public domain.

The data has revealed the overall activeness of the Members of Parliament.

In Indian democracy, people elect their representatives for five years and send them to the Lok Sabha to address their issues and problems.

Once a Member of Parliament sits in the Lok Sabha then he/she is duty bound to attend all sittings of the lower house and ask questions of public importance.

To hold the government accountable, members have the power to pose questions to various ministers. There are two types of questions: starred and unstarred. While starred questions receive an oral reply from the minister in the House and unstarred questions receive a written reply. When the Parliament is in session then an hour is allocated every morning for replies to starred questions. According to the rules, 20 starred questions are taken up per day in Lok Sabha and 15 in Rajya Sabha.

However, fact of the matter is that generally the Question Hour gets disrupted due to the several political parties' political agendas.

Despite all the shortcomings, many MPs performed their duties very well for which they were sent to the Lok Sabha by their voters.

Below are Most Active and Most Inactive MPs as per the data collected by PRS Legislative Research (PRS).

These MPs have been analysed on different parameters like raising questions, attendance, participation in debates and moving Private Member's Bill.

Star Performer MPs:

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MPs outperformed all other party MPs in asking questions.

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MPs Supriya Sule, Vijay Singh Mohite-Patil and Dhananjay Mahadik asked highest number of questions during the 16th Lok Sabha.

Supriya Sule, MP from Baramati Lok Sabha Constituency in Maharashtra, posed 1181 questions that are much higher than national average of 292 questions.

Vijay Singh Mohite-Patil, MP from Madha Lok Sabha Constituency in Maharashtra, asked 1134 questions.

Dhananjay Mahadik, MP from Kolhapur Lok Sabha Constituency in Maharashtra, posed 1170 questions.

However, two NCP MPs, out of party's total six MPs, didn't ask a single questions in five years.

These two MPs are: Madhukarrao Kukade and Udyanraje Bhonsle, who represent Bhandara-Gondiya and Satara Lok Sabha Parliamentary constituencies in Maharashtra respectively.

Four Shiv Sena MPs also asked over 1000 questions in the 16th Lok Sabha.

MP from Maval Shrirang Barne asked 1110 questions, MP from Shirur Shivaji Patil asked 1101 questions, MP from Amravati Anandrao Adsul posed 1056 questions, and MP from Mumbai-North-West Gajanan Kirtikar asked 1013 questions.

A whopping 1.42 lakh questions were asked in the Lok Sabha between 2014 and 2019.

On the attendance front, Bhairon Prasad Mishra, Bharaitya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Banda Lok Sabha constituency of Uttar Pradesh, and Kulamani Samal, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MP from Jagatsinghpur Lok Sabha constituency of Odisha, Ramesh Chander Kaushik (BJP) from Sonepat Lok Sabha constituency of Haryana, and Gopal Chinnaiya Shetty (BJP) from Mumbai North Lok Sabha constituency of Mahrashtra scored 100% attendance.

However, the data also shows that Bhairon Prasad Mishra performed in the 16th Lok Sabha as an all-rounder.

Mishra also asked 544 questions, which is more than the national average of 292 questions.

The BJP MP also participated in 2095 debates in Lok Sabha, which is much higher than the national average of 67.1.

Ninety-four per cent of the members participated in debates on various issues raised in the House.

In moving Private Member's Bill, Mishra again shined by moving 21 Bills against national average of 2.3.

An MP who is not a minister may introduce a Private Member's Bill. Private Member Bills enable MPs to highlight legislative gaps and introduce Bills to address them.

300 MPs did not introduce any Private Member Bills in the 16th Lok Sabha. There were 14 MPs each who introduced between 1 to 10 and more than 20 Private Member Bills respectively.

'Stars' Who Didn't Perform:

Congress President and MP from Amethi Lok Sabha Parliamentary Rahul Gandhi was among those 31 Lok Sabha MPs who didn't ask a single question during 16th Lok Sabha.

Former Congress President and Rahul's mother Sonia Gandhi also didn't ask a single question, who is MP from Rae Bareli Parliamentary constituency.

The other famous politicians like Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, BJP veteran and former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav also didn't ask a single question.

However, Sonia, Deve Gowda, Advani and Yadav can be excused due to their age, but Rahul Gandhi is likely to be questioned for scoring a zero as far as raising issues of public concern in the Lok Sabha.