Two of India’s most voluble film stars, Sunny Deol and Shatrughan Sinha, who have made a name for themselves with a high-octane dialogue delivery, did not utter a single word in the outgoing Lok Sabha. In total, nine of the 543 members did not speak a word in Lok Sabha, six of whom are from the BJP and four of them belonging to Karnataka.
Speaker’s outreach
Speaker Om Birla had, as per sources, meticulously reached out to the members who had not had an opportunity to speak in Parliament. “The Speaker, for example, had approached Mr. Deol, at least twice, calling him over, extending special opportunity to him, to utilise the various opportunities offered including Zero Hour when any issue of national importance can be raised, to speak. But he could not be moved,” a senior Parliamentary official said.
Mr. Deol represents Gurdaspur Lok Sabha constituency. Mr. Sinha was elected from Asansol seat in West Bengal in a bypoll in 2022 on a TMC ticket, after singer Babul Supriyo, who was elected from the seat on a BJP ticket, switched to the Trinamool Congress.
The other member from West Bengal is Dibyendu Adhikari (Tamluk Lok Sabha constituency). Mr. Adhikari is the younger brother of Suvendu Adhikari, the current Leader of Opposition in West Bengal State Assembly. The Adhikari brothers switched from Trinamool to BJP ahead of the last Assembly elections and Mr. Suvendu Adhikari went on to contest and defeat Trinamool President Mamata Banerjee.
The four members from Karnataka who fall in this category include, B.N. Bache Gowda (Chikkaballapur), Anantkumar Hegde (Uttara Kannada), V. Sreenivasa Prasad (Chamrajanagar) and Ramesh C. Jigajinagi (Bijapur). All the four are from BJP.
BJP MP Pradhan Baruah elected from Lakhimpur in Assam and BSP’s Atul Kumar Singh elected from Ghosi are the other two members in the list.
No questions asked
While six MPs in this list have had at least written participation — by moving questions or making written special mention submission, three members — Mr. Jigajinagi, Mr. Singh and Mr. Sinha — have the distinction of making no contribution in written or oral form in Parliamentary proceedings. Mr. Jigajinagi has been unwell for a long time and Mr. Singh has been in jail for a significant part of the term.
According to statistics collated by non-governmental organisation PRS Legislative Research, MPs participated on an average in 45 debates in the 17th Lok Sabha. MPs from Kerala and Rajasthan had the highest participation in debates on average.
