Last month, the President nominated four eminent personalities — P.T. Usha, Ilaiyaraaja, Veerendra Heggade and V. Vijayendra Prasad — to the Rajya Sabha. Article 80(3) of the Constitution states that nominees shall consist of persons with special knowledge or practical experience in literature, science, art, and social service. The recent nominations also reflect a southern push by the Modi government. An analysis of the performance of previously nominated MPs across attendance, questions raised, debates participated and private member Bills introduced shows that most of them lag behind the national average. The analysis is restricted to those MPs who are serving or retired in or after June 2009. The data was sourced from PRS Legislative Research.
Attendance levels
The chart shows the attendance (in %) of nominated RS MPs. The average attendance of all RS MPs since 2009 is 79%. The attendance of 20 nominated RS MPs was below the 79% mark. Actor Rekha (5%), cricketer Sachin Tendulkar (8%), and former CJI Ranjan Gogoi (25%) attended the least. Six nominated MPs had less than 50% attendance.
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Debates participated
The chart shows the debates participated by nominated RS MPs. The blue colour indicates MPs whose performance was better than the national average*, pink denotes below average. Only four MPs had participated in more debates than the national average. Both Rekha and Tendulkar did not participate in any debate.
Questions asked
The chart shows the number of questions asked by nominated RS MPs. The blue colour indicates MPs who asked more questions than the national average*, and pink indicates those below average. 34 MPs asked questions below the national average.* 16 nominated MPs did not raise even a single question.
Private member Bills
The chart shows the number of private member Bills introduced by nominated MPs. The blue colour indicates MPs who introduced Bills more than the national average*, and pink indicates those below average. 29 MPs did not introduce a single private member Bill.
*The national average varies for each person, depending on his/her tenure. So, if an MP has a relatively better participation in overall terms, it does not mean that it is higher than the national average.
Also read: Data | Lok Sabha in a “tearing hurry”
