Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday pulled up about 20 of his party MPs for not being present in the Lok Sabha during the discussion and voting last week on the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, 2015.
At the BJP’s parliamentary party meeting here on Monday morning, Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu announced the names of the absentee MPs. They were then asked to stand up and explain their absence last week.
The ‘errant’ MPs included Shatrughan Sinha, Varun Gandhi, Poonam Mahajan, Babul Supriyo and Pritam Munde.
According to sources, one MP was absent due to a bereavement in the family while another — Rajendra Agrawal of Meerut — had to attend a wedding. The rest, however, failed to provide convincing reasons.
The PM warned his MPs against repeating this mistake.
“He said that while Parliament is in session, it is the duty of all MPs to be dedicated to their duties.
“They should be present in general and particularly when an important legislative business is being conducted,” a BJP MP told BusinessLine .
The MPs were also told to not come late for scheduled meetings. The PM himself is not just punctual, he makes it a point to arrive well ahead of time for all these meetings.
For today’s 9.30 am meeting, he arrived about 10 minutes early while a number of MPs were seen rushing in late.
Besides being ticked off for absence during the Land Bill voting, the legislators were asked to be regular in attending parliamentary party meetings.
These meetings are held every Tuesday morning before the House convenes and Modi expects all the 281 MPs in the Lok Sabha and 47 MPs in the Rajya Sabha to be present on time.
Not amusedThe party and the PM are clearly not amused by frequent violations of these directions. A source said that in the last two meetings, as many as 72 and 52 MPs were not present.
“The PM is not casual about these meetings. Why should the MPs be allowed to skip them or be late?” said a party MP when quizzed about whether the legislators resent being ticked off for either being late or absent.