Babus list questions, but remain absent in LS

Speaker Meira Kumar had to adjourn the House nearly half-an-hour after the Question Hour started at 11:00 am after seventeen of the 20 queries could not be taken up as the MPs who had got them listed were not present.

Kumar later told journalists that absence of so many questioning MPs was indeed “a serious issue.”

The truant MPs included young debutants like Varun Gandhi of the BJP and Shruti Choudhary of the Congress. The prominent among the other absentees were Madhu Goud Yakshi, Eknath Gaikawad, B Jhansi Laxmi of the Congress, Anand Rao Adsul and Shivaji A Patil of the Shiv Sena, Prabodh Panda of the CPI and Asaduddin Owaisi of the All India Majlis e Ittehadul Muslimeen party.

Twenty of the questions listed by the MPs were short-listed to be raised and responded to by the ministers on the floor of the House. But only three of them could be taken up.

The questions that could not be taken up were to be replied to by the Ministers of Commerce and Industries, Communications and Information Technology, Labour and Employment, Social Justice and Empowerment, Rural Development and Shipping.  Yakshi, one of the absentees, later told journalists that he was in the Parliament itself when the Question Hour was on, but had not been able to reach the House before its adjournment.
BJP member Radha Mohan Singh passed the buck to the Indian Railways, stating his train was delayed.