Friday, October 31, 2014

Cong man fires most questions in House

Times of India: Bangalore: Friday, 31 October 2014.
It's a Congressman who has fired the maximum number of questions at the state government in the legislative assembly. And four MLAs from the city haven't bothered to ask a single question.
In one year (from July 2013 to July 2014), during which five assembly sessions have been held, city legislators have asked 1,427 questions. The data, obtained through the RTI Act, was released by Daksh, an NGO.
Shanthinagar MLA NA Haris has posed the maximum number of questions, 266. JD(S) MLA from Mahalakshmi Layout K Gopalaiah is second with 260, followed by Ravi Subramanya LA (BJP, Basavanagudi - 115); ST Somashekar (Congress, Yeshwanthpur - 93); R Ashoka (BJP, Padmanabhanagar - 87); BN Vijay Kumar (BJP, Jayanagar - 84).
Four MLAs -- Raghu (BJP, CV Raman Nagar); Priya Krishna (Congress, Govindarajnagar); RV Devaraj (Congress, Chamarajpet); BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan (JDS, Chamarajpet) -- haven't asked a single question. Two other Congressmen -- M Krishnappa (Vijayanagar) and Shivanna B (Anekal) asked just four questions.
Being in the opposition, BJP MLAs have asked the maximum questions. Out of 1,427 questions, BJP legislators have raised 641 (44.91%), followed by Congress 478 (33.49%), and JD(S) MLAs have sought answers for 308 (21.58%) questions.
The city has 28 MLAs - 13 from Congress, 12 from BJP and three from JD(S). Of the 13 Congressmen, five are ministers and therefore don't ask questions. This means eight MLAs of the party asked the 467 questions. Before becoming a minister, R Roshan Baig asked 11 questions.
Most questions are unstarred (members are given written answers). The starred questions (oral answers) are discussed in the assembly during Question Hour. The assembly starts its proceedings with the Question Hour.
The maximum questions have been directed at the urban development department which handles the city's administration. Chief minister Siddaramaiah is the Bangalore City development minister.