Rahul, Sonia, Advani less active in Parliament
Youth is eventually coming to grab its fit place in the country members of Parliament being no exception. No political party today wants to be back seated in promoting young men and women in their activities, said a latest report.
?Mass for Awareness? an NGO found in its report tilled ?Representatives at work? on functioning of 15th Loksabha for the year 2010-2011 that young MPs outshine their senior counterparts in terms of participation in their parliamentary business, albeit seeming to be defaulters at their presence in the House.
The report of the NGO undertakes the performance of MP?s in 2010-2011.
While its previous report on the same line in 2009-10 was widely appreciated. Neeraj Gupta, Editor of the Report said that it undertaken many interesting aspects of the life and works of our sitting MPs and data relating to their age, educational qualification, occupation and gender-wise and analysis is also provided therein which makes its all the more useful to determine the trends of future Politics too.
According to the report, the Parliament had a total of 72 sittings during 2010-11 with the total time spent of 260 hours and 20 minutes. In total, 194 hours and 58 minutes was wasted due to the chaotic scenes asking to the demand of JPC on 2G Spectrum scam and son\me other issues. The Proceedings were disrupted at 11,512 times. The members made 75% presence in at the sittings.
The Report divides the proceedings of Loksabha into ten parts. The first part attendance shows that 12 MPs have registered 100 percent attendance out of which 7 are from congress party.
About 180 MPs have had an attendance of more than 60 days at the total 72 sittings of the House. If we go state wise, the MP from Manipur have registered 99% presence topping the list of the states whose MPs have more than 90% attendance. Mizoram (97%), Delhi (95%), Nagaland (94%) and Lakshadweep (93%) are the runner ups.
As for the personal attendance UPA Chairman Sonia Gandhi have an attendance of only 24 days in her name while Rahul Gandhi 19 days, Suresh Kalmadi 13 days, Kalyan Singh 18 days and Navjot Singh Siddhu 24 days are the other low scorers.
Age Group-wise, the MPs belonging to the age group of 25 to 40 years have registered 72 % presence while those of 41-60 years and above 60 years have had a figure of 74% and 78 % respectively. Women MPs (78%) were out run the males (75%). If we analyze Occupationaly, the MPs with film background are the lowest scorer with 48% attendance.
The 2nd part of the report relates to the Question hour of the Lok Sabha.
The data shows that where as only 3 members have asked more than 200 questions, the number of MPs putting of more than 100 questions is 112. The MPs from Lakshadweep, Maharashtra, Tamilnadu, Gujrat and Kerla are the top askers, but prominent names like LK Advani, Lalu Prasad, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Rahul Gandhi, Sandeep Dixit, Sharad Yadav, Suresh Kalmadi, Sonia Gandhi, Sushma Swaraj, Yashodhara Raje Sindhia, Ajeet Singh etc are included in the list of those some 80 members who didn?t find its necessary to go by question route.
179 MPs have less than 10 questions against their names during the period of observations. It is interesting to know that 76% of the total questions were asked by the members belonging to the industrial background and finance was the favorite subject on which most of the questions were asked.
Railway, Health and family welfare, Human resources Development, Agriculture and Home were the Ministries with faced most number of questions while ministry of Minority affairs, Panchayati Raj, Space and Development of North-East states had a scarcity of queries.
Members have registered 87% attendance in the discussion in the house out of which only 14% MPs can be said to have a good performance.
Arjunram Meghwal (BJP) leads Performance wise. 60% of MPs didn?t think it wise to participate by speaking in the discussion who included the list are Babu Lal Marandi, Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi.
The MPs also didn?t show much interest in the potential Parliamentary rights like Private member Bill. Only 67 private members bills were presented out of total MPs and 168 such bills are still pending for decision. Hansraj G. Ahir(BJP), Jay Prakash Aggarwal(Congress) and Adhir Ranjan Choudhary used the private member bill device on most of the chances.
Ironically, the members are more known for interceptions and adjournments then to contribute fruitfully in the proceedings.
The reports also acknowledge the fact that the proceedings of the house of the people intrupted 11,512 times during the year and it were adjourned at 110 occasions.
The issues like Price hike, Caste based Census, Salary Hike to the MPs, etc were prominent of all which led to the half the proceedings. One such nasty issue was demand of JPC to probe into the in-famous 2G Spectrum scam, which halted the proceeding of Lok Sabha for 23 days. Our representatives also didn?t loose any opportunity to take into their stride the well of the house and staging walk outs.
They would leap into the well of the house at the smallest stimulation. Number of such occasion was 163 this time in comparison to 113 last year. Walk outs were staged 27 times.
The members of also known for their disinterestedness in using their MPLADS funds and they have continued with it this time also. All the members have utilized only 35% of this money on the average, despite a proper hike on the funds.
Only a handful of members have made a proper use of MPLADS in their respective constituencies of whom the representatives of Mizoram leads with cent percent utilization. Other names worthy of appreciation in this respect are- Dr. Rajan Sushant(BJP), CL Ruala (CONG.), DB Chnadra Gowda(BJP), Sushma Swaraj(BJP) and P Venugopal(AIADMK). 20 MPs have not spent a single penny from their fund including like of Syed Shahnawaj Hussain, Madhu Koda, CP Joshi and Kalyan Singh.
The leading lights like LK Advani, Sandeep Dixit, Sharad yadav, Sachin Pilot, Pranab Mukherjee, Rahul Gandhi, Ajeet singh and Murli Manohar Joshi are also among the nominal spenders.
Significantly, more than 50% of the members used the parliamentary instrument of ?special mention?. The MPs of 41-60 years age group were the leaders in this respect. Arjun Ram Meghwal(BJP) was the top name among the opposition members who were enthusiastic to raise issues under this facility. On the Government bills, the response was ordinary.
?Mass for Awareness? is a voluntary organization working for awareness of voters to insure of 100% participation of electorates in the poll process.