16 Tripura MLAs never raised a question in five years: Report

Former Congress MLA Ratan Lal Nath asked the most number of questions while CPM MLA Haricharan Sarkar asked only one question in 15 sessions of the 11th Assembly.

At least 16 Tripura MLAs never raised questions during Assembly sessions in the last five years, a report of Tripura Election Watch has said.

The 11th assembly session sat for only 73 days from March 2013 to November last year. The longest session was for 12 days in 2015 and shortest was only for one day on July 1, 2013.(www.tripuraassembly.nic.in)

Former Congress MLA Ratan Lal Nath asked the most number of questions while CPM MLA Haricharan Sarkar asked only one question in 15 sessions of the 11th Assembly, the report said.

“Total 44 MLAs that comprised of 73% MLAs asked 4,032 questions during Assembly sessions. Ratan Lal Nath asked 1,706 questions that stand 42% of the total questions, highest among all MLAs,” said coordinator of Tripura Election Watch, state chapter of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), Biswendu Bhattacharjee.

Nath was followed by the late CPM MLA Samir Deb Sarkar and ex-Congress MLA Asish Kumar Saha who asked 488 and 240 questions.

Both Asish Saha and Ratan Nath joined BJP within the five-year tenure of Assembly.

Only four MLAs have 100% attendance — Pranab Debbarma, Keshab Debbarma, Rajkumar Choudhury and Lalit Kumar Debbarma, all from CPM.

The 11th assembly session sat for only 73 days from March 2013 to November last year. The longest session was for 12 days in 2015 and shortest was only for one day on July 1, 2013.

During this period, 47 Bills were introduced and except two, all Bills were passed in the Assembly. In 10th Assembly in 2008, the Assembly passed 26 out of 34 Bills till its term ended in 2013.