The Kochi Post brings to our readers data regarding the performance of Members of Parliament from our State in the Lok Sabha for the period from 1st June 2014 to 11th May 2016. The MPs have been assessed on parameters like; attendance percentage, number of debates participated, questions asked in the House and number of Private Bills presented. Except for the attendance parameter, the state average is higher than the national average.
The national average for attendance is 82% and the state average is 77%. The national average for debate participation is 34.8 and the state average is almost double at 67.5. Similarly, the national average for questions asked is 135 and the state average is much higher at 217. Again, the national average for private bills presented is 1.1 and the state average is higher at 2.2.
Mullappally Ramachandran tops the attendance parameter with 90% of attendance. The second position is shared by Joice George, KC Venugopal and PK Biju with 85% of attendance. The third position has gone to Shashi Tharoor with 83% of attendance. Innocent has the lowest attendance with 57%, while E Ahamed comes close with 60% and MI Shanavas with 65% of attendance.
Coming to the debate participation parameter, PK Biju tops the table with 162 participations, followed by NK Premachandran with 133 participations and Joice George with 124 participations. E Ahamed along with Innocent has participated only in 14 debates and occupies the bottom slot in the table. KV Thomas also finds a place in the bottom with 15 debates alone.
Anto Antony has asked the most number of questions in the Lok Sabha with 363 questions. He is followed by Mullappaly Ramachandran with 349 questions and Suresh Kodikunnil with 318 questions. Only 28 questions were asked by E Ahamed and is followed by MI Shanavas with 94 questions. Innocent has asked 140 questions.
MK Raghavan has presented 14 private member bills, which is the highest from Kerala. He is followed by Mullappally Ramachandran and Suresh Kodikunnil with 6 bills each. P. Karunakaran has presented 5 bills and he is followed by ET Mohammed Basheer and Shashi Tharoor with 4 bills each. A Sampath has presented three bills. Anto Antony and Joice George presented 1 private member bill each. 11 MPs did not present any private member bills and they include; CN Jayadevan, E Ahamed, Innocent, Jose K Mani, KC Venugopal, KV Thomas, MB Rajesh, MI Shanavas, NK Premachandran, PK Biju and PK Sreemathi.
Initially the candidature of E Ahamed was criticised for repeatedly contesting to the Lok Sabha for the past several years and not giving opportunity to others. The candidature of Innocent also faced opposition for being someone from the film industry and no prior political experience. The initial results prove the critics right and it is time for a introspection for them as well as for other MPs about their work efficiencies and contributions.
The data mentioned above has been provided by PRS Legislative Research and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Main photograph by A.Savin (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
