Shotgun, Sunny among ‘khamosh’ 9 in 17th LS

Swati.MathurNew Delhi: His iconic ‘tareekh pe tareekh’ dialogue may have captivated cinema lovers over the years, but the 17th Lok Sabha never saw BJP’s Gurdaspur MP Sunny Deol even utter a word. The Bollywood star was among 9 MPs who failed to address the house even once during its 5-year term.Deol, though, was not alone. TMC MP Shatrughan Sinha, elected to Lok Sabha in a byelection in April 2022, remained ‘khamosh’ too. Though he made several appearances in the lower house and participated in a handful of opposition protests, the Asansol MP never spoke, did not submit any questions, nor did he raise any matters of urgent importance relating to his constituency.By all means, this was a difficult feat to pull. Shortly after Om Birla was appointed as the Lok Sabha speaker, he drew up a list of first time MPs, prodding each to speak in the house at least once, if only to make Zero Hour interventions. Despite his best efforts, several members ended up without having delivered a single speech in Lok Sabha between 2019 and 2024.Other MPs who did not participate in the proceedings of the house included Bijapur BJP MP Ramesh Chandrappa Jigajinagi, away for a considerable period of time on account of ill health and BSP MP Atul Rai who was in jail until August last year.TMC’s Dibyendu Adhikari and BJP’s Pradhan Baruah (Lakhimpur-Assam) and BN Bache Gowda, Anant Kumar Hegde and V Srinivas Prasad (all from Karnataka) are the other MPs who did not speak during the entire tenure of the current Lok Sabha.