For the third time in its history, the Lok Sabha on Monday took up 20 starred questions during Question Hour but nine BJP MPs whose questions were listed and had their names called did not rise to put their questions. This, despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi admonishing MPs at the BJP parliamentary party meet last week to “mend their ways” otherwise changes would be effected.
BJP chief whip Rakesh Singh, Bangalore (South) MP Tejasvi Surya, Pashchim Champaran (Bihar) MP Sanjay Jaiswal, Kaushambi (Uttar Pradesh) MP Vinod Kumar, Balurghat (West Bengal) MP and State party president Sukanta Majumdar and Pali (Rajasthan) MP P.P. Chaudhary were among the nine MPs who didn’t raise their questions.
Sources in the BJP said some MPs did not ask their questions as they were satisfied with the answer provided and did not feel the need to go ahead with supplementaries.
A senior BJP MP, however, said that even if the MPs did not want to ask supplementaries, “the convention is to stand up when your name is called and state that you don’t want to put your supplementary. These MPs did not do that either.”
The last two times that the Lok Sabha had taken up 20 starred questions during Question Hour had been on March 14, 1972 and on November 27, 2019.
