A Report on Performance of MPs from North-Eastern States of India

Progress report of MPs from the Northeastern states of India: Report

At last the progress report of our Member of Parliament has come out. For the past five years, we have been wondering what they exactly do inside the parliament house during sessions?

Being an elector, it is our responsibility to check the performance of elected persons, who assume the role of emissaries in the national capital. And, in turn elected persons should respect the aspiration of the people and act as per the wish of the mass. While representing the views and aspirations of the people of their constituency in Parliament, MPs should participate actively in the legislative, financial and other business of the parliament. In a broader sense they are the representatives of the state and the nation as a whole.

We can check the performance of our MPs by analyzing the way how they engage themselves in the parliamentary business using mechanisms like Debate, Questions and Private Member Bills by which MPs fulfill their responsibilities. Besides, attendance during Parliament Sessions also indicates the commitment to give effect to his/her role.

Altogether, there are 25 constituencies in the eight Northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura.

Let’s have a look at their progress reports.

Among the northeastern states, Manipur has the highest average attendance of 98%. Encouragingly, Thokchom Meinya, Lok Sabha MP from Inner Manipur constituency has attendance record of 99% in all 16 parliamentary sessions, according to PRS Legislative Research.

Meinya participated in 55 debates (Bills). The teacher-turned MP from Inner Manipur constituency is listed among the top 10 MPs, who attend the parliament regularly. He asked 204 questions including 17 starred and moved one Private Members Bill-“The Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2012 (Insertion of new article 371CA).” His Private Members Bill is yet to see the light of the day.

Attendance of Thangso Baite (Outer Manipur) is 98%; just 1% behind from his counterpart from Inner Manipur Constituency. On contrary to his good attendance record, the MP participated only in 3 debates (1- Request to constitute a Board to be known as the ‘National Board for the Development of Himalayan States with full financial assistance of the Union Government’, 2- Need to review the decision of Shri Muivah’s visit to his birth place in Manipur and 3- Statement made by the Minister of Finance on the issues relating to setting up of a Lok Pal) and asked 9 questions, which is a discouraging performance of an elected person representing one of the most economically backward and socially polarized parliamentary constituencies in the country- Outer Manipur.

As per the data, the national average for debates spoken is 38 and P D Rai from Sikkim has the highest number (70) of debates spoken. Most Northeastern states score higher than the national attendance average of 76%.

The national questions average is 300. Among the MPs from the northeastern states, Badruddin Ajmal (Assam) has asked the highest 320 number of questions in the parliament with Khagen Das (Tripura) a close second 310 questions.

Bijoya Chakravarty (Assam) has introduced the most number of private member bills (4). The national average for introduction of private member bills is 0.8.

DETAIL PERFORMANCE OF MPs FROM NORTHEASTERN STATES OF INDIA