JOIN USMPs' desire for gain tips over diligence at work
Be it attendance, asking questions or participating in debates, in all of their primary duties, many MPs fall much below their expected performance.
Take this: Less than 20 per cent of Lok Sabha MPs have an attendance record of 80 per cent or above.
A large number of MPs remained absent for 30-50 per cent of the times Parliament has had its sittings during the period between May 2009, when the 15th Lok Sabha got elected, and June 2010.
In the party-wise attendance record, the ruling Congress has a figure of 80 per cent during the period, while the Opposition BJP cuts a sorry figure with its MPs together being present only 74 per cent of the total sitting days.
But even the Congress does not shine that much in the attendance list, its position being a mere 12 in rankings, below the CPI (95 per cent, jointly the highest attendance with the Kerala Congress(M), Janata Dal (United) (89 per cent), CPM (87 per cent), Samajwadi Party (86 per cent) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (85 per cent).
The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (8 per cent) and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (5 per cent), two parties that profess to represent regional aspirations at the Centre, are the worst off as far as the attendance is concerned.
The daily allowance of MPs for attending Parliament has just been doubled to Rs 2,000.
“We do not need to say that the absence of MPs results in wastage of the country’s valuable time and money. But the absences impede the decision-making process and the debates,” said Neeraj Gupta, representative of Vote for India, an NGO that has analysed the performance data of the MPs from the Parliament website.
An analysis of state-wise MPs attendance data during the period shows that Karnataka is the worst-off among the larger states, notching just 67 per cent in the attendance, while its neighbour Maharashtra has a figure of 74 per cent attendance.
The analysis leaves out ministers and the Speaker since they do not need to sign the attendance register, even though it is a known fact that Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, too, is among regular absentees.
At an individual level, seven MPs—six from Congress (A K Vundavalli from AP, Eknath Gaekwad from Maharashtra, K P Dhanapalan and P T Thomas from Kerala, Pradeep Tamta from Uttarakhand and Thokchom Meinya from Manipur) and one from CPM (M B Rajesh from Kerala)—have the highest attendance record of 86 per cent.
The dubious distinction of lowest attendance goes to JMM’s Kameshwar Baitha from Jharkahnd and BJP’s Baliram Kashyap from Chhattisgarh (2 per cent each).
In asking questions, too, the performance is just average, with about 20 per cent of the MPs never asking any and only 27 of the 545 MPs asking over 200 questions during the period.
Just about 20 per cent in total have asked over 100 questions.
Similarly in debates, 14 per cent have never participated in any, while the performance of about 77 per cent is just about average, the analysis says.
DH News Service
Hard to digest
* Less than 20 pc of Lok Sabha MPs record
80 pc or above attendance
* The ruling Congress has 80 pc attendance during house sessions, while Opposition BJP has 74 pc
* Karnataka MPs have only 67 pc attendance
* Around 20 pc of MPs have never asked questions
* Debates are also given the go-by by 14 pc of the total
number of MPs