Parliament is the house of our elected representatives and thus is the seat of Democracy of our nation. Parliament has been entrusted mainly with three responsibilities which can briefly be outlined as follows: Active participation of Members of Parliament (MPs) in the proceedings of house is therefore crucial in the fulfilment of Parliament’s responsibilities. For enabling this active participation, few parliamentary procedures are in place. Three of the important parliamentary procedures where MPs can actively participate are; The analysis presented here gauges the performance of MPs floor of the house. This is done on the basis of their use of these three parliamentary procedures i.e. asking questions, taking part in debates and introduction of private member bills. These procedures have been specifically chosen as the parameters to determine MPs performance as they give a fair indication of their inclination towards participation in parliamentary functioning & decision making. Also the ‘introduction of private member bills’ category tells us about the capability of MPs to suggest solutions to the problems and not just raise issues or point fingers at the ruling party. Analysis of the data: Top performing MPs are listed down category wise along with the party they belong to and the constituency they represent. Apart from listing down these MPs, some interesting insights are also part of the analysis. PARTICIPATION IN DEBATES Participation in these debates represents the MP’s interest in various issues of concern. It also gives us a fair idea of his active participation in decision making & corrective action which is the precisely the job entrusted to him. Below is the list of 10 MPs who have been part of most number of debates: It is to be noted that ASKING QUESTIONS Asking questions is a clear evidence of the efforts put by MPs in addressing issues and initiating discussions in the Parliament. Many important issues see the light of the day through the process of questioning ultimately leading to solution or corrective government action. Below is the list of 10 MPs who have asked the most number of questions in the 15 Lok Sabha It is to be noted that INTRODUCTION OF PRIVATE MEMBER BILLS Private Member Bill is a provision in our constitution that enables MPs who are not ministers to present a bill in the Parliament. Our wise constitution makers foresaw the importance of giving every MP an equal chance to come up with solutions to problems. Below is the list of 10 MPs who presented the most number of private member bills during the 15 Lok Sabha. It is to be noted that 370 MPs never presented a Private member bill and 114 MPs introduced at least one private member bill. THE BOTTOM OF THE PILE It is also pertinent to look the worst performers in the three categories. Following is the list of 17 MPs who have never asked any question, never taken part in a debate and never introduced a private member bill. It is also to be noted that Overall Numbers It has been found that a total of one lakh forty thousand two hundred two hundred and fifty five (1,40,255) questions were asked in the fifteenth Lok Sabha. On an average, each MP asked two hundred and fifty (250) questions. Of special interest to us should be the number of private member bills which were six hundred and fifty two (652) on the whole and 1.3 bills on an average by each MP. None of these were passed. Analysis of the three parameters for the recognised national parties of the 15th Lok Sabha To understand the performance of a party, we took the six national parties and analysed their performance in the three parameters chosen. All the MPs belonging to a party were grouped together for the analysis. Note: Total & Average number of Debates has not been calculated since debates could involve two or more MPs. Aggregation of the debates would result in repetitive counting of participants. It is to be noted that On further analysis of the MPs education & background, we found some interesting trends. Data Source: The data has been collated from the Lok Sabha Website. Check out the Infographic presenting the Top Peformers of 15th Lok Sabha here.