Shatrughan Sinha. Credit: sinhashatrughan.in
New Delhi: “Khamosh!” his baritone voice would ring out as he would silence his opponents onscreen and political rivals in real life. Shatrughan Sinha now seems to have followed his own command – the star has fallen silent – at least in the Lok Sabha. The ‘Bihari Babu’ happens to be one of the 27 MPs who fought way hard to get party tickets and then come up triumphs in the 2014 polls to the Lower House. However, on reaching there these members have chosen not to speak. All of them have not raised a single question, participated in a discussion or moved a private members bill.
A close scrutiny of the data collected by non-profit organization and independent research institute, PRS Legislative Research, on the performance of MPs in the 16th Lok Sabha up to May 13 shows that of the 27 MPs on the list, 12 are from the BJP with three of them coming from Narendra Modi’s Gujarat.
Trinamool MPs stay quiet
But the surprise package is the silence of the 10 MPs of Trinamool Congress, which has a total strength of 34 in the House. It is speculated that these MPs find themselves under some sort of pressure because of which they do not participate actively in the House proceedings. As far as their attendance goes, most of these MPs have been quite regular.
Apart from BJP and Trinamool, there is one MP each from Congress, YSR Congress, JMM, Nationalist Congress Party and Biju Janata Dal who have made it to this list of non-performing members.
To be fair to `Shotgun’ Sinha, who got the nickname for his style of dialogue delivery, he is not the only star on the list. There is also the charming actress Moon Moon Sen (real name Shreemati Dev Verma) from Bankura in West Bengal, who was elected on All India Trinamool Congress ticket. Not a word from here so far.
Another Bengali star, singer Babul Supriyo (real name Babul Supriya Baral), who was elected on a BJP ticket from Asansol, also appears to have lost his voice in the House.
There are some senior politicians in this list too. Probably the biggest surprise here is former Union Minister and senior BJP leader, Prof. Murli Manohar Joshi. Though he was in the news recently, taking on the government on its piecemeal approach in cleaning the Ganga, in the House, which provides the platform to raise issues of public interest, he has not raised any questions despite having a high attendance of 91%.
So is the case with senior Congress leader from Malda South in West Bengal, Abu Hasan Khan Chaudhary; BJP MP from Deoria in U.P. Kalraj Mishra; and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha founder and MP from Dumka, Shibu Soren.