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Supriya Sule leads in Lok Sabha queries
According to data from PRS Legislative Research, Sule, a three-term Lok Sabha MP from Baramati, asked 167 questions and participated in 75 debates between May and December, 2019.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) lawmaker Supriya Sule has been most active in asking questions in the new Lok Sabha. She is also among the six MPs from Maharashtra who have been in the top 10 in terms of asking questions to the government on the floor of the Lower House.
According to data from PRS Legislative Research, Sule, a three-term Lok Sabha MP from Baramati, asked 167 questions and participated in 75 debates between May and December, 2019. She sought replies from the government on a range of issues — from data privacy to energy to organic waste to public health.
Sule said she was active during Question Hour because, as an MP, asking questions to the government is her duty. “This is least I can do,” she said.
Both Houses of Parliament have an hour-long “Question Hour”, during which MPs can ask questions on any subject to the government, and ministers give oral or written replies on the floor of the House. Members are also allowed to ask supplementary questions for further queries.
The number of questions asked is an important parameter to judge the performance of an MP. As political parties decide the list of speakers in a debate, an MP may not get the chance to participate in all discussions. But they are always free to ask questions during “Question Hour” and seek replies on issues that are key to them or their constituencies.
While Sule has been an active Opposition leader posing questions to the government, Subhas Bhamre from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was the next on the list with 161 questions asked in the current Lok Sabha, many of them pertaining to health care and rural sector.
Bhamre, a doctor by profession, is a two-term MP from Dhule, Maharashtra.
“I represent predominantly a rural constituency, with more than 600 villages. So, I am mostly interested in subjects related to health and rural India,” Bhamre said. He said that though he asked a lot of questions, his intention was not to challenge his government. “Being a member of Parliament of the BJP, I am supportive of government. My questions are aimed to seek information about government schemes and policies and also to give feedback to the ministers,” he said.
Question Hour has been a key part of the parliamentary proceedings, and hours of preparation go behind each session. In the Winter Session, the Rajya Sabha had its most productive Question Hour in 49 years, with a daily average of 9.5 questions orally replied to on the floor of the House. The Lok Sabha, for the first time since 1972, got all 20 listed questions orally replied by ministers on one day (November 27, 2019) during Question Hour.
Apart from the six Maharashtra MPs in the top 10, there was one each from Karnataka, Andaman & Nicobar, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh. Four lawmakers in the top 10 have come to the Lok Sabha for the first time — Kuldeep Rai Sharma from Andaman & Nicobar (Congress), Amol Ramsingh Kolhe from Shirur (NCP), Sukanta Majumdar from Balurghat (BJP), and Tatkare Sunil Dattatray from Raigad (NCP).
While several MPs are prolific during Question Hour, on some occasions, they jointly ask the same questions. Sule and Bhamre, for example, have asked a number of questions together — including one on Health ATMs in the Indian Railways.
Former parliamentary affairs secretary Afzal Amanullah stressed on the importance of Question Hour. “The first thing the MPs should do is to ask questions to the government, and keep it on its toes. There are many things that do not come out in the public domain but impinge heavily on public issues, policies and other matters of public interest. Questions are treated as top priorities, but governments normally tend to answer only and exactly what has been asked to hide many vital pieces of information. That is why questions have to be framed very carefully,” he said.
