33% of RS members didn't pose questions in House

New Delhi: Thirty-three per cent of Rajya Sabha members did not pose any question to the government during the winter session of Parliament, a jump from 20% in the monsoon session. Members of the ruling BJP are more in number among the top performers as they outscored their counterparts from other parties in posing questions.

A Vijay Kumar (AIADMK) raised the highest number of seven questions in the winter session. He was proactive in the monsoon session as well with six questions during Question Hour.

Shantanu Sen (Trinamool) posed seven questions in the winter session, the highest by any member. At the behest of Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, the Rajya Sabha secretariat had conducted an analysis of the participation by members of the Upper House in the 249th and 250thsession. Forty nine (or 20%) had not raised any question in the monsoon session while this number was 80 (or 33% )in the winter session. The Upper House has a strength of 240 now.

The study revealed that 7% of the members posed 25% of the total 660 questions listed during the last two sessions. Among the lead questioners of the last two sessions are Harnath Singh (BJP)-11, Banda Prakash (TRS)-9 and Ram Nath Thakur (BJP)-9 among others.