hi all
14th Lok Sabha (2004-2009)
At the end of 14th Lok Sabha, then Hon'ble Speaker Sri Somnath Chatterjee on the last day of the sitting (Feb 2009) spoke about the deteriorating quality of the Members. He also pointed out then that nearly 24% of the Parliament time was wasted in disruption. The whole nation was discussing about the bad side of the Parliament. Since 15th Elections was announced, we thought of highlighting the role of Parliament in the democracy in our ezine PreSense. Our 37th edition (March 2009) carried interesting details about our Parliament and we also carried the information about top performing MPs of 14th Lok Sabha. Please read the March 2009 edition of ezine.
Duties of Parliamentarians
In 2009, 15th Lok Sabha was constituted after the 15th General Elections. As per the constitution, duties of the MPs are (a) making laws, (b) supervise the Government and holding them accountable, (c) discuss and pass financial budgets and (d) take up the issues affecting the people. For this purpose, Parliament offers instruments like (a) participation in debates, (b) introduction of private bills and (c) raising of questions.
Instituting Awards - 15h Lok Sabha
In 2010, on behalf of our ezine PreSense and Prime Point Foundation, we started honouring the top performing MPs on the basis of (a) debates, (b) private members bills, and (c) raising questions. We honoured the top performing MPs with 'Sansad Ratna Award' based on the cumulative total tally of debates, private bills and questions upto the corresponding Budget Session in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
Sansad Ratna Awards - 5th edition
The final and 5th edition of Sansad Ratna Award function was held at Chennai Press Club on Saturday the 22nd Feb 2014. We selected 9 MPs, who had scored total tally of more than 1000 for Sansad Ratna Awards 2014. We selected 3 women MPs among the top performing women MPs for Sansad Mahila Ratna Award.
Out of 12 MPs selected, 8 MPs confirmed their participation to receive the Awards at Chennai. Due to various political developments, 3 MPs had to cancel the visit in the last minute. 5 MPs received the Awards at Chennai Press Club on 22nd Feb 2014 from the hands of Shri N Gopalaswami, Former Chief Election Commissioner of India. It may be recalled that Mr Gopalaswami only issued the notification for the 15th General Elections and conducted a part of the elections before his retirement.
MPs who rank No 1 in each category
Shri Anandrao Adsul (Shiv Sena MP from Maharashtra) tops the 15th Lok Sabha with total tally of 1304. He ranks No 1 in the entire Lok Sabha for questions category by raising 1266 questions. It may be noted that Mr Adsul was No 1 in the 14th Lok Sabha also for the total tally and for raising questions.
Shri Hansraj G Ahir (BJP MP from Maharashtra) ranks No 1 in introducing private members bills. He introduced 31 private members bills and his total tally is 1150. He introduced 'Land acquisition bill' in 2007 in the 14th Lok Sabha and again in 2010 in the current 15 Lok Sabha as private members bill. Recently, this landmark bill was passed by the Lok Sabha and made into an Act.
Shri Arjunram Meghwal (BJP MP from Rajasthan) ranks No 1 in participation in debates. He has participated in 430 debates in the 15th Lok Sabha. His total tally is 1199. Though I am not able to get the confirmation and data, in my observation, Shri Arjunram Meghwal should be the MP who has participated in maximum number of debates in the past 64 years. I am trying to get the past data for confirmation.
Please see the details about other award winning MPs in the link.
We are proud to honour them with Sansad Ratna Awards. The purpose of our award is to encourage such Lok Sabha heroes and to motivate others to perform better.
A few MPs shamed the nation and other few made us proud
This 15th Lok Sabha has witnessed unruly scenes, violation of protocol, violence inside the House like 'pepper spray' incident, etc. I feel that only a few MPs are responsible for this. These few MPs shamed the nation and the democracy.
In spite of the ruckus in the Parliament, the Award winning MPs have silently participated in the proceedings of the Lok Sabha whenever opportunity came and complied with their constitutional duties. Nearly one-third of the Parliament time was lost in disturbance. Many good MPs used to tell me that due to such disturbances they lost opportunity to take up many important issues.
Sadly the media also does not give importance to such performing MPs and they make the bad MPs as heroes. Also, the political parties do not have any internal system of assessing the performance of the MPs and punishing the MPs who create ruckus.
When media and political parties do not give respect to the democratic values, it is the responsibility of the 'civil society' to protect the democracy. Feb 2014 issue of our ezine will focus more on this.
Jai Hind
K. Srinivasan
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