Shashwat Mishra, Mumbai Uncensored, 20th December 2021.
Praja Foundation, a non-partisan organization working towards enabling accountable governance since 1997 based out of Mumbai, Maharashtra, recently released their report on MLAs performance in the legislative assembly. The report concluded that the performance of MLAs from Mumbai is declining. The duration of the house in terms of it being in session has reduced due to the advent of the pandemic, but so is the engagement of MLAs in the house. Questions asked by the MLAs have been reduced by a massive 70%, the report highlights the total number of questions asked by MLAs between the winter session 2014 and the budget session 2016 were, 8,777 in number, which saw a significant drop to being merely 2,620 questions asked between winter session 2019 and budget session 2021.
The report also presents an assembly-wise data of a number of meetings in the first year of a tenure of the assembly i.e.12th (2009-2014), 13th (2014-2019) assembly, wherein the members met for 47 and 50 days respectively in the first year. This number significantly drops in the current term which is 22 days, important point to be noted here is that in 2019 there was no pandemic, and India registered its first covid case in January 2020. Milind Mhaske, the director of Praja, pointed out that, “Of the 2,620 questions raised from the winter session 2019 to Budget session 2021, only 378 were related to health. This low number is shocking as the state was facing a health emergency in the last two years.” One of the MLAs was reported saying that the duration of sessions has been curtailed due to the pandemic and since, the political dispensation has three parties at the helm, all the issues are raised within the party lines.
