They got the role, but do star MPs have ‘dates’ for Lok Sabha?

Three film stars from Bengal – Dev, Mimi Chakraborty and Nusrat Jahan (all from Trinamool Congress) – and Sunny Deol of BJP have less than one-fourth attendance in the ongoing 17th Lok Sabha.

Dev (Deepak Adhikari), the star of super hits like Challenge, marked 11% attendance while Gurdaspur MP Deol clocked 20%. Both Mimi and Nusrat recorded 22%, as per PRS Legislative Research data. The national attendance average of 17th Lok Sabha MPs is 79%.

Three film personalities who scored higher than the national average among Lok Sabha MPs are Bhojpuri actor-singers Dinesh Lal Yadav ‘Nirahua’ and Manoj Tiwari. The two BJP MPs registered 90% and 83% attendance, respectively. Locket Chatterjee, also of BJP, scored a high 88%. Nirahua, who won a by-election in Azamgarh in June 2022, has attended only three sessions so far.

Apart from attendance, participating in debates and asking questions are some other in-house activities for legislators. As per PRS data, each Lok Sabha MP, on average, has participated in 41. 5 debates and asked 176 questions since 2019.

MR Madhavan of PRS Legislative research says the participation data for each MP should be interpreted with caution. “These are quantitative metrics that give an idea about the amount of participation in Parliament, but do not measure the quality of any intervention.”

For example, an MP who speaks rhetorically and frequently will have higher numbers than another who makes more effective but fewer interventions. “ However, if an MP is not speaking at all during debates and has a very low attendance, it can only be interpreted as a low degree of involvement,” Madhavan says.

For instance, Dev has participated in only one debate during this tenure and asked 80 questions, including three on the Ghatal Master Plan. Ghatal, a flood-prone town in West Medinipur district, is his constituency. Deol has not participated in any debate and asked only one question so far, on illegal sand mining in rivers.

Yadav a. k. a. Nirahua, too, has been involved in only three debates; two of them requesting the government to form an Ahir regiment in the army (Yadavs are also known as Ahirs). He has asked eight questions overall.

Bengal actor Mimi Chakraborty was more active than Dev and Deol. She took part in seven debates, including one on cruelty to street dogs, and asked 145 questions. Her latest question was on India’s unemployment rate. Nusrat Jahan intervened in 11 debates, some on issues related to her constituency of Basirhat, including making a demand for a railway halt station at UttarDebipur. She has altogether asked 131 questions.

Social scientist Dipankar Gupta says unless actors are immersed in politics, they feel out of place in an arena with which they are completely unfamiliar. “Actors, like cricketers, are used to adoration for their prowess on the screen, or on the cricket field, and find their ineptitude in politics personally humiliating. Remember, they are stars with hangers-on praising their every move but, in Parliament, they might not know what move to make.”

PRS statistics show Manoj Tiwari from Northeast Delhi constituency has been actively involved in Parliamentary proceedings. He has 100% attendance in four sessions, took part in 31 debates and asked 336 questions.

Like Tiwari, Locket Chatterjee also has 100% attendance in four sessions. The BJP MP from Hooghly in Bengal participated in 38 debates, mostly on issues related to the state, especially law and order. She also raised the demand to “dedicate two days for women during the Parliament session”.