New Delhi: A study conducted by the House Secretariat showed that there was only one Member of Parliament, who has clocked 100% attendance in the last seven sessions of Rajya Sabha. 75-year-old AIADMK member, SR Balasubramaniam is found to be the most regular Rajya Sabha member, having participation in the proceedings of all the 138 sittings of these 7 sessions.
According to the study, 78%, of Rajya Sabha members attended the proceedings of the House daily, and around 30% members had full presence in a session and only less than 2% had zero attendance. The first-ever quantitative analysis of the extent of participation of Members of Parliament in the house proceedings was undertaken after Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu demanded to analyse the pattern of attendance.
With the ministers, Deputy Chairman, Leader of the House and Leader of the Opposition not required to sign the attendance register, about 225 Members noted their attendance daily, as mandated under the Members of Parliament (Salary and Allowances) Act.
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Five of the members, Ashok Bajpai, Neeraj Shekhar, DP Vats, Vikas Mahatme and Ramkumar Verma had fully attended six sessions, while seven members, Rakesh Sinha, Dr Kailash Soni, Sudhanshu Trivedi, Naresh Gujral, Vishambar Prasad Nishad, Kumar Ketkar and Amee Yagnik had full attendance for five sessions. The highest daily attendance of 82.57% was reported during the 254th Session (last monsoon session), while a low of 72.88% was recorded during the preceding one, it showed. During this period, 29.14% reported full attendance while only 1.90% never attended the proceedings for various reasons and were granted leave of absence by the House.
The analysis further revealed that the pandemic did not impact much in the attendance during the last three sessions. During the 252nd session, the first to be held following Covid protocol, 44.19%, i.e, 99 members, attended the proceedings during all the ten sittings, while 98 members, accounting for 46%, were present during the 17 sittings of the 254th Session.
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