With the last two Sessions of Parliament dubbed to be most productive in recent two decades, the Rajya Sabha has done an analysis of its Question Hour that has revealed that 75 per cent of the members in 249th Session (Monsoon) and 65 per cent in 250th Session (Winter) got opportunities to raise starred questions during the last two Sessions.
As per the analysis done on the directions of Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu, sources in Parliament said 660 starred questions, including 375 listed for 25 question days during the 249th Session and 285 listed for 19 question days during the 250th Session were taken successfully and amongst all AIADMK member A Vijay Kumar of AIADMK raised the highest number of 13 starred questions during the last two Sessions at Upper House. Vijay Kumar was the lead questioner during the 249th Session with seven questions to his credit and was in second position during the 250th Session with six questions. Dr Santanu Sen of Trinamool Congress was the lead questioner with seven during the 250th Session.
Sources said the Rajya Sabha Secretariat conducted an analysis of the participation of the Members in the Question Hour during the 249th and 250th Sessions after Naidu sought to know the details regarding the extent of opportunities that members get to raise questions.
The analysis of 660 starred questions, including 375 listed for 25 question days during the 249th Session and 285 listed for 19 question days during the 250th Session revealed that 75 per cent and 65 per cent of the Members got opportunities to raise starred questions
during the last two Sessions respectively.
With the Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha and 13 Union Ministers from the Upper House not submitting notices of Questions, an effective strength of 226 Members was considered for the analysis. 177 members raised questions during the 249th session and 146 during the 250th.
It is revealed that about 7 per cent of the Members accounted for about 25 per cent of the total 660 Questions listed during the two Sessions while about one third Members accounted for about 75 per cent of the total Questions listed. During the 249th Session, 49 Members did not raise any Starred Question while this number was 80 in case of the 250th Session.
Lead questioners during the last two Sessions combined include A Vijay Kumar of AIADMK with 13 questions, followed by Harnath Singh Yadav of BJP with 11, Dr Santanu Sen of TMC (10), Dr Banda Prakash of TRS (9), Shri Ram Nath Thakur of BJP (9), Shri Amar Shankar Sable of BJP (9), Dr Vinay P Sahasrabuddhe of BJP (9), Dr L Hanumanthaiah of Congress (8), Kanakamedala Ravindra Kumar of TDP
(8) and V Prabhakara Reddy of YSRCP (8).
Sasikala Pushpa Ramaswamy of AIADMK with seven questions was in the lead among the 25 women Members of Rajya Sabha.
Among the prominent and active Members in Rajya Sabha, Vijay Goel of BJP got to raise five Starred Questions, Rajeev Chandrashekhar of BJP-5, Binoy Viswam of CPI-5, KK Ragesh of CPM-5, PL Punia of Congress-5, Anil Desai of Shiv Sena-5, Dr T Subbirami Reddy of Congress-5, Rakesh Sinha of BJP-5, Tiruchi Siva of DMK-4, MV Rajeev Gowda of Congress-4 and Digvijay Singh of Congress-2.
Congress members Ahmed Patel and Abhishek Manu Singhvi, TMC member Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, Vaiko of MDMK and Prof. Manoj Jha of RJD got one question each listed against them.
About 100 Members of Rajya Sabha gave about 200 notices of starred questions per day out of which 25 were picked by lottery. Of these, 15 were listed subject to norms of acceptability as Starred and the remaining as unstarred questions. Each Member is allowed to submit a maximum of seven notices per day.
“Question Hour is an important Parliamentary instrument for the members to seek accountability of the Government for the policies and programmes and their execution. 15 starred questions are listed per day and they are picked up by lottery from the notices for questions given by the members. A member can give only up to seven notices per day,” sources in Parliament said.