In a concerning revelation, Derek O’Brien, the TMC leader who heads the party in parliament, has not attended a single parliamentary committee meeting so far, reported The print. As per the report, the West Bengal based TMC MPs have the lowest attendance in the committee meetings, accounting for 57 per cent of total MPs who never attended even one meeting.
The list also includes few BJP MPs like Anant Kumar Hegde and Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Shiromani Akali Dal’s Sukhbir Singh Badal, Bahujan Samaj Party’s Satish Chandra Mishra. A total of 243 MPs from both houses are on 8 committees, with 109 of BJP, 33 of Congress, and 14 of TMC. None of TMC’s 14 members who are on panels of various parliamentary committees given their seniority and expertise have attended any meeting so far. TMC won 22 seats in West Bengal out of 42 while BJP won on 18 seats and Congress won two.
TMC has some of the most experienced and educated politicians, and majority of the party’s elected members in Lok Sabha, are well educated and have expertise in different fields. As per their expertise and experience, they were placed in various committees.
But so far, the contribution of these MPs has been zero, as they have not attended a single meeting. The TMC are at the forefront when it comes to participation in debates, in which they get a chance to criticize Modi government and hail Mamata Banerjee, the presiding deity of the party. It has many ‘star’ MPs like Derek O’Brien, Mimi Chakraborty, Mahua Moitra, Prof. Saugata Roy, Nusrat Jahan, Dev aka Deepak Adhikari, and Satabdi Roy.
The MPs like Derek O’Brien are present in the Lok Sabha debates but do not attend the parliamentary committee meetings because there is no will to contribute constructively for the nation. The MPs like O’Brien and Moitra get time to stick their neck out in the 9 PM TV studio fight but the committee meetings are not important to them.
The parliamentary committees monitor the meeting of the executive branch and are supposed to discuss, analyze, and contribute constructively in policy-making. The MPs can improve the outcome of a bill or policy through constructive criticism and contribution of the policies of the government in the field of their expertise, but, it seems, the MPs like Mahua Moitra have no intention to do so. They only want media limelight by calling the Modi government fascist in parliament and TV studio, which will obviously give instant fame in national and international liberal media.
Few other TMC MPs like Mimi Chakraborty, Nusrat Jahan, Dev aka Deepak Adhikari, and Satabdi Roy are from the world of Bengali cinema. The cinema or sports personalities always have poor attendance and work record, irrespective of the party. These people come to politics to save their fading career and capitalize on their fame to enjoy the pay and perks of MPs.
Political parties like TMC, SP, Congress and in many cases BJP too, give them ticket given the higher chance of winning that they have. But as they do not enjoy contributing to politics and have very little interest in policymaking and polity of the country, their contribution is near zero.
Derek O’Brien, whose sycophancy of Mamata Banerjee and TMC crosses all the levels of dignity and self-respect, and is ready to take on Modi government on almost every matter, was also not present at any meeting.
