JOIN US33% Delhi MLAs hardly took part in House discussions
Thirty-three per cent of Delhi MLAs barely participated in any discussion in the state Assembly last year, said a “report card” on legislators released here by an NGO.
The NGO assessed the performance of 58 legislators – out of 67 of the AAP and three of the Opposition BJP – and found that 33 per cent of these have barely participated in discussion, according to the report. Sixteen MLAs have raised only one to five issues.
Three AAP MLAs in the 70-member Assembly have not asked even a single question. According to the report released by Praja Foundation, Nangloi Jat MLA Raghuvinder Shokeen, Deoli MLA Prakash and Seelampur MLA Mohammad Ishraque did not raise a single question in the 26 meetings of the Delhi Assembly from February 24, 2015 to December 22, 2015.
The NGO has issued the report card of 58 MLAs of Delhi based on two aspects. Sixty per cent weightage was given to the relevant issues raised by them in the Assembly. The remaining 40 per cent is given to the personal interviews with the people of the particular MLA’s constituency.
A sample size of 29950 households from various constituencies has been taken into account for this purpose. The main source of information for the organisation was RTIs. A perception survey was also conducted along with the Hansa Research.
Just 12 questions
The ruling party MLAs asked just 12 questions at an average, much lesser in comparison to 69 issues raised by ruling coalition (BJP and Shiv Sena) MLAs from Mumbai in the Maharashtra Assembly. In Delhi, Krishna Nagar MLA S K Bagga has topped the list of 58 Delhi legislators, the report said.
All the three bottom rankers are from the ruling party AAP with the overall party score for AAP being 58.44 per cent and BJP scoring 66.04 per cent, said Nitai Mehta, founding trustee of Praja Foundation.
Two of the three BJP MLAs in the Delhi Assembly have featured in the top five MLAs. BJP’s MLA Jagdish Pradhan from Mustafabad ranked second with 71.87 per cent and Om Prakash Sharma from Karkardooma has been ranked fourth with 70.75 per cent.
AAP’s Nitin Tyagi secured the second position according to the results based on the legislators’ performance in the Assembly by raising questions and their image among the voters.
Meanwhile, Mumbai MLAs have outperformed the Delhi MLAs by raising 140 issues in comparison to 16 by the MLAs in the capital. According to the report, Delhi’s first report card is disappointing with 58.83 per cent in contrary to Mumbai’s average score being 65.11 per cent.
Eleven MLAs including Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy Manish Sisodia, Transport Minister Gopal Rai, the then Deputy Speaker Bandana Kumari, Speaker Ram Niwas Goel , controversial minister Sandeep Kumar, now sacked, and Health Minister Satyendar Jain were excluded from the study. Another member, who is Delhi Cantonment, has also been left out.
They have not been involved because being speaker, deputy speakers, chief ministers and ministers in the state assembly, they cannot ask question. An MLA, who is a part of a cantonment board, has also been excluded from the survey.
The organisation has listed three badges namely “Mr Popular” which is given after judging the perception of services extended to the public and their accessibility. A badge of ‘Mr Committed’ is given to an MLA who had raised maximum quality issues in the Assembly during this period.
An MLA would be awarded with the “Mr Clean badge” based on his criminal record. A negative marking by five points was made if an FIR was filed against the MLA and another five for a charge sheet filed against him.