Anubhav, Samal & Jena most punctual Odisha MPs

WINTER SESSION

Manish Kumar

New Delhi, Dec 16: Two Lok Sabha MPs and one Rajya Sabha MP from Odisha seem to lead in the state in terms of attending most of the sittings of the recently concluded Winter Session of the Parliament, which was despite efforts by some parties failed to do much of the expected business.

In the Rajya Sabha,  BJD MP Anubhav Mohanty proved to be the most punctual as well as most responsible by asking the maximum number of questions in the Upper House. In the Upper House, the maximum sittings were attended by Mohanty who attended all the 21 sittings of the Upper House while following him was Independent candidate A V Swamy who was able to attend 19 out of 21 sittings. Moreover, Anubhav also asked the maximum number of 42 questions in the House which included both starred and unstarred questions, although many were asked only in the submission form which got written replies.

If the Lok Sabha attendance register is to be believed, Jagatsinghpur MP Kulamani Samal leads among all the Lok Sabha MPs from the state in terms of attendance as he successfully attended all the 21 sittings of the Lower House while Balasore MP Rabindra Kumar Jena attended 20 sittings while he was absent for a single day. Moreover, Aska MP Ladu Kishore Swain also attended 20 out of the 21 sittings of the Lower House.

The Winter Session of the Parliament ran from November 16-December 16 where a total of 21 sittings were held, most of which were lost due to heavy disruptions from the Opposition parties on the issue of demonetisation. However barring the cacophony of the House, the 21 Lok Sabha MPs from Orissa were able to raise some important public matter questions through the Zero Hour and the Question Hour.

Although not all the question listed in the daily Question Lists were asked due to frequent disruptions but all the questions were answered by the ministers concerned as written replies as per practice of the Parliament.

As per statistics of the Lok Sabha, the maximum number of questions in the Lower House including both starred and unstarred questions were asked by Jena who was able to seek replies to 41 of his questions while others who followed him included Kendrapara MP Baijayant Panda who asked 26 questions while Samal asked 21 questions too.