Choose MPs to Parliament panels based on interest, attendance: Vice President Naidu to parties

Overall attendance of Rajya Sabha MPs in Parliament panels at 46%; for BJP MPs it is 56.56%, and Congress 41.86%

At a time the yearly reconstitution of Parliamentary Standing Committees being taken up, Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu has urged party leaders to nominate MPs to the panels based on their interest and participation, as analysis showed that lawmakers from the Upper House has an attendance of 46 per cent in such meetings.

BJP MPs, number 92, from Rajya Sabha clocked an attendance of 56.56 per cent while the 38-member Congress, the main Opposition party, had 41.86 per cent attendance. Three-member AAP had the highest attendance of 77.19 per cent followed by Akali Dal with three MPs had 75.55 per cent while five-member JD(U) had the least at 16.17 per cent, the analysis by the Rajya Sabha Secretariat showed.

When Secretary General Dr PPK Ramacharyulu spoke to leaders of various parties to convey Naidu's advice, sources said some leaders attributed the low attendance in some cases to the Covid-19 condition and restrictions as well as elections in some states. BJP has 4-5 MPs in all the committees while Congress has two lawmakers each in 15 committees and one each in eight.

In a first, sources said, the analysis of attendance of 243 MPs from 32 parties as well independents and nominated in 361 meetings has been sent to respective party leaders to gauge the interest of MPs of various committees and factor in the same while nominating or re-nominating them to the panels.

Parliament has 24 Department Related Parliamentary Standing Committees -- 16 are under Lok Sabha while eight are under Rajya Sabha -- with 31 members each -- 20 from Lok Sabha and 11 from Rajya Sabha.

Also read: Parliament more about policy than politics: PM Modi

The analysis showed that the attendance of BJP MPs has been the highest in the meetings of Defence panel at 87.5 per cent followed by Chemicals and Fertilizers 83.33 per cent, Personnel, Pensions and Public Grievances 79.16 per cent, Home Affairs 77.63 per cent, Coal and Steel-75 per cent, Industry 72.72 per cent and Education-66.66 per cent. While attendance of BJP MPs in the meetings of 21 committees has been more than 50 per cent, it has been close to 50 per cent for Rural Development, Information Technology and Energy committees.

For Congress, the highest attendance of 100 per cent has been reported in respect of the Science and Technology panel with the lone party MP Jairam Ramesh attending all the meetings as Chairman. The agriculture panel also witnessed high attendance from Congress MPs who clocked 93.33 per cent attendance followed by Chemicals and Fertilizers 88.88 per cent, Water Resources 83.33 per cent, Education 83.33 per cent, Home Affairs 78.94 per cent and Rural Development 70.83 per cent.

Congress MPs' attendance in the Finance panel was worst at 3.12 per cent while it was slightly better in External Affairs 8.92 per cent, Commerce 13 per cent and Energy 21.42 per cent. Congress MPs reported attendance of below 50 per cent in 11 of the 23 committees of which they were members.

According to the analysis, 16 Rajya Sabha MPs -- 10 from BJP, three from Congress and one each SP, DMK and TRS -- attended all the meetings while 115 others clocked attendance of 50 per cent or more. The attendance of about one-third members of Rajya Sabha has been below 30 per cent.

Ten MPs from BJP -- Subramonian Swamy, Rakesh Sinha, KC Ramamurthy, Arun Singh, Vikas Mahatme, Ashok Bajpai, Dr DP Vats, Jaiprakash Nishad, TG Venkatesh and Vinay Sahasrabuddhe -- and three from Congress -- Ramesh, Anand Sharma and Chhaya Verma (Congress) -- are among the MPs who have 100 per cent attendance. Others include Prof Ramgopal Yadav (SP), K Keshava Rao (TRS) and P Wilson (DMK).

When it comes to party-wise attendance, YSR Congress (six MPs) has 66.66 per cent, BJD (nine) 61.65 per cent, TRS (seven) 43.56 per cent, DMK (seven) 41.34 per cent, SP (eight) 37.98 per cent, RJD (5) 36.36 per cent, CPI-M (seven) 33.96 per cent, AIADMK (nine) 31.09 per cent, BSP (five 26.66 per cent and Trinamool Congress (13) 24.44 per cent.

The attendance of 14 parties with single members each has been 23 per cent with K Ravindra Kumar (TDP) reporting 90 per cent. Five Independents and Nominated members had 9 per cent attendance

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