New Delhi: Congress President Sonia Gandhi cracked the whip on party members who were absent during Question Hour in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
She reportedly demanded a list of the missing MPs. She has also asked for an explanation from each MP on why he wasn’t present in the House.
There were as many as 34 MPs who had submitted questions but were found absent when Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar called out their names on Monday. Among them were Varun Gandhi (BJP), Madhu Goud Yakshi, Shruti Choudhury (both Congress), Shivaji Adhalrao Patil (Shiv Sena), Rajiv Ranjan Singh (JD-U) and Prabodh Panda (CPI).
Barely 30 minutes into Question Hour, the Speaker adjourned the House in frustration. She later regretted the absence of such a large number of members.
As usual 20 questions were listed for oral replies during the hour-long exercise. But just three were taken up with supplementaries when the House stumbled upon the long list of truants.
The very first question, listed against Congress MP Harsh Vardhan, was to defence minister AK Antony. But the member was absent. This set the trend for the day.
Meira Kumar had said that she was going to write to leaders of all parties to share her concern on Question Hour being disrupted repeatedly and MPs being absent from the House during important debates.
"It is a matter of concern. I am going to write to the leaders of the political parties on these issues," the speaker told reporters outside Parliament.
Taking a unanimous stand on the issue, most Parliamentarians termed it as "unfortunate and shameful"
Janata Dal (U) MP Hukum Naryan Yadav said, “It is very unfortunate for Parliamentary democracy as it has never happened before. There were 20 questions and only three MPs were present."
Union Minister of State for Rural Development Pradeep Jain said, "It is a colossal waste of public money as MPs, after listing questions, are not reaching the House on time."
(With inputs from agencies)
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