New Delhi: Only six Members of Parliament (MP) in the 16th Lok Sabha managed 100 per cent attendance, four of whom are from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and none from the main opposition party, the Congress, whose chief Rahul Gandhi attended just over half the total sittings.
The two remaining MPs with complete attendance are from regional parties, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) of Andhra Pradesh, and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) of Odisha.
Both Houses of Parliament were adjourned sine die Wednesday. The attendance data has been compiled by PRS Legislative Research and analysed by ThePrint.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, while the BJP won 282 of the 543 seats, the Congress won 44. The next two large blocs to emerge were the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) with 37 seats and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) with 34. The BJD rounded up the top five (seat-share) with 20.
Congress president Gandhi clocked an attendance of just 52 per cent, much lower than the average of 80 per cent. In fact, Gandhi, who has been launching sharp attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, including in Parliament, was among the bottom six performers from his party in terms of attendance.
Around 18 MPs registered attendance of less than 40 per cent, including two each from the BJP and the Congress, and as many as four from Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress.
The data pertains to the period from 1 June 2014 to 8 February 2018. It excludes the Prime Minister and his council of ministers since they are not required to sign the attendance register and are deemed as representing the government (only for the duration of they serve as ministers).
Each legislator’s attendance percentage is calculated according to his/her tenure in Parliament and the number of sittings that took place in that time.
Thus, for MPs who were elected in a bypoll or had to leave their Parliament seat due to some reason, the attendance is a proportion of the number of times they went to the Lok Sabha to the total number of sittings while they were MP.
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The best and the worst
The six MPs who scored a century are the BJP’s Bhairon Prasad Mishra and Niranjan Jyoti from Uttar Pradesh, Gopal Chinayya Shetty from Maharashtra and Ramesh Chander Kaushik from Haryana, besides Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati of the TDP and Kulamani Samal of the BJD.
For Raju, who served as Minister for Civil Aviation in the Modi cabinet but resigned on 8 March 2018 after the TDP pulled out of the government, the 100 per cent attendance record is a reflection of his tenure since he stepped down as minister.
The lowest attendance — just 6 per cent — is of Punjab Chief Minister and Congress leader Captain Amarinder Singh, whose term ended on 23 November 2016, when he decided to contest the state polls.
Prominent names among the poor performers include BJP MP Hema Malini (39 per cent), the Samajwadi Party’s Dimple Yadav (31 per cent), TMC leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee (29 per cent), and former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, whose term ended in July 2016.
The young, the experienced
Some of the Lok Sabha debutants seem to have shown much enthusiasm, attending the House diligently. Among the top 10 MPs in terms of attendance, nine are first-time parliamentarians while it was the second term for one.
However, some of the veterans also led the way.
The BJP’s Kariya Munda from Jharkhand, an eight-term MP, had an attendance of 96 per cent, while party veteran L.K. Advani, who is serving his seventh term, clocked 92 per cent.
Congress MP from Kerala Ramachandran Mullappally, also a seven-time parliamentarian, boasted of an attendance of 92 per cent.
The top-performing state
The national average for the number of debates an MP participated in is 67, and the corresponding figures for the number of questions asked and private member bills introduced stand at 291 and 2.3, respectively.
The state whose MPs, on average, had the lowest attendance is Jammu & Kashmir (54 per cent), while the highest has been Delhi (93 per cent). Uttar Pradesh, which sends the maximum members to the Lower House, saw its MPs put up a healthy show with a state average of 86 per cent.
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The MPs from farther states stay away from Parliament saying that they are working and thus cannot attend. Whereas in reality, MPs like Abhishek Banerjee isn’t even available in his constituency. They are actually busy pleasing upper party members or working for the party. People’s welfare is not their concern.