AIADMK's A Vijay Kumar raised most starred questions in last two RS sessions

A Vijay Kumar of AIADMK raised the most number of starred questions, at 13, in the last two sessions of Rajya Sabha, followed by BJP's Harnath Singh Yadav and TMC's Santanu Sen who asked 11 and 10 questions respectively, sources in the Rajya Sabha said. The AIADMK member was the lead questioner during the 249th Session with seven questions to his credit, while Santanu Sen raised seven questions in the 250th Session.

An analysis by the Rajya Sabha Secretariat about the participation of members during the Question Hour in the 249th and 250th sessions has revealed that around 70 per cent members raised starred questions in the Upper House, sources said. During the 249th Session, 49 members did not raise any starred questions, while this number was 80 in the 250th Session.

The analysis of 660 starred questions -- 375 listed for 25 question days during the 249th Session and 285 listed for 19 question days during the 250th Session -- revealed that 75 per cent and 65 per cent of members got the opportunity to raise starred questions during the sessions, respectively. With the deputy chairman of Rajya Sabha and 13 Union ministers from the Upper House not submitting notices of questions, an effective strength of 226 members was considered for the analysis. 177 members raised questions during the 249th Session and 146 during the 250th Session, the RS sources said.

It was revealed that about seven per cent of the members accounted for about 25 per cent of the total 660 questions, while about one third members accounted for about 75 per cent of the total questions listed, the sources added. Banda Prakash of TRS, Ram Nath Thakur of BJP, Amar Shankar Sable of BJP and Vinay P Sahasrabuddhe of BJP asked nine questions each, while L Hanumanthaiah of Congress, Kanakamedala Ravindra Kumar of TDP and V Prabhakara Reddy of YSRCP asked eight questions each in the last two sessions.

Sasikala Pushpa Ramaswamy of AIADMK asked seven questions and was in the lead among the 25 women members of Rajya Sabha. The sources said that about 100 members of Rajya Sabha give about 200 notices of starred questions per day out of which 25 are picked by lottery. Of these, 15 are listed subject to norms of acceptability as starred and the remaining as unstarred questions. Each member is allowed to submit a maximum of seven notices per day.

The Question Hour is an important parliamentary instrument for the members to seek accountability from the government over policies and programmes and their execution.

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