Revision as of 09:56, 9 February 2021

Disruptions in Parliament, 1991-2014; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, August 26, 2015

Sessions of Lok Sabha

…and the month of their commencement

First 13 May 1952

Second April 1957

Third April 1962

Fourth March 1967

Fifth March 1971

Sixth March 1977

Seventh January 1980

Eighth December 1984

Ninth December 1989

Tenth June 1991

Eleventh May 1996

Twelfth March 1998

Thirteenth October 1999

Fourteenth May 2004

Fifteenth May 2009

Sixteenth May 2014

Age of MPs, average

1952- 2014

The average Age of Indian MPs, presumably on the date of their swearing-in, 1952- 2014
Adapted from The Times of India

See graphic, 'The average Age of Indian MPs, presumably on the date of their swearing-in, 1952- 2014'

Changes over the years

1952- 2014/ 19: Changes in the Lok Sabha

1952- 2014/ 19: Changes in the Lok Sabha’s
Average age
Education levels
Gender distribution
Hours of work done
From: March 17, 2019: The Times of India

See graphic:

1952- 2014/ 19: Changes in the Lok Sabha’s
Average age
Education levels
Gender distribution
Hours of work done

2012: People per MP ratio

People per MP ratio, India and some other regions of the world, as in 2012
From: March 19, 2019: The Times of India

See graphic:

People per MP ratio, India and some other regions of the world, as in 2012

2014: Biggest/ smallest constituencies

Biggest constituencies in 2014
From: March 19, 2019: The Times of India

Smallest constituencies in 2014
From: March 19, 2019: The Times of India

See graphics:

Biggest constituencies in 2014

Smallest constituencies in 2014

2019- 2071 (estimate): representation, state-wise

If population decided seats, this is how states would be represented:
Current seats as in March 20, 2019;
2019 estimate;
2071 estimate;
Gain/Loss 2071;
state-wise
From: March 19, 2019: The Times of India

See graphic:

If population decided seats, this is how states would be represented:
Current seats as in March 20, 2019;
2019 estimate;
2071 estimate;
Gain/Loss 2071;
state-wise

The leader of the opposition

Requirements for being the Leader of Opposition

Cong can't get LoP post in LS: AG to Speaker

Dhananjay.Mahapatra @timesgroup.com New Delhi:

The Times of India Jul 26 2014

In 2014, with just 44 seats, Congres had based its claim for the post of leader of opposition post in the Lok Sabha on the law relating to Salary and Allowances of Leader of Opposition in Parliament Act, 1977 and the rules there under. The law provides the largest opposition party would get the post. Answering a query on this issue posed to him by the 2014 Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, attorney general Mukul Rohatgi referred to the rulings given by highly regarded parliamentarian G V Mavalankar, the first Speaker of the Lok Sabha. He said Mavalankar's directions were adopted to deny LoP status to any party during the period when Jawaharlal Nehru was the PM from 1947 to 1964.

According to Rohatgi, Mavalankar had ruled that to get the post in the Lok Sabha, an opposition party has to secure a minimum of 10% of the seats, that is it must have a strength of 55 MPs.

Rohatgi said Mavalankar had felt that the main opposition party's numbers must equal the quorum, which is 10% of the total strength, required for functioning of the House. Following Mavalankar's ruling, the Congres regimes under Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi had decided not to give the LoP post to the then largest opposition party because they had failed to reach the 55 MP-mark in the Lok Sabha.

The Centre has highlighted direction 121 of `Directions to the Speaker' which provide that a party's strength must be one-tenth of the Lok Sabha to be recognized as a parliamentary party or group.

No-confidence motions

1966-2018

No-confidence motions moved against the government in the parliament, 1966-2018
From: July 21, 2018: The Times of India

See graphic  :

No-confidence motions moved against the government in the parliament, 1966-2018

Number of seats in the Lok Sabha

Number frozen in 1976

How 1976 seat freeze has altered LS representation, March 16, 2019: The Times of India

The number of seats each state would have had in 2019 (and likely number in 2071) if they had been punished for curbing the growth of their population and rewarded for letting their population multiply.
From: How 1976 seat freeze has altered LS representation, March 16, 2019: The Times of India

Move Was To Encourage Family Planning And Ensure States That Curbed Population Growth Didn’t Lose Out In Parliament

Article 81 of India’s Constitution laid down that every state (and Union territory) will be allotted seats in the Lok Sabha in such a manner that the ratio of population to seats should be as equal as possible across states. If the letter and spirit of the original provision were to be implemented today, the composition of the Lok Sabha would change drastically with states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Delhi gaining significantly and Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Telangana losing out (see graphic).

The reason this hasn’t happened is because in 1976, during the Emergency, the 42nd amendment Act decreed that the population to be taken into consideration for the next 25 years would be the number in the 1971 census. The rationale was that family planning was a national imperative and states would have little incentive to pursue it if success meant their share of political power would go down. The freeze on reapportioning seats between states and UTs was further extended by the 84th amendment Act in 2001 till 2026.

The result of this freeze is that the principle of “one man (or woman) one vote” has been diluted in India? At the time of the apportioning of seats based on the 1971 census, all big states had a Lok Sabha MP representing roughly 10 lakh people. The extent of the variation was from just over 10 lakh to about 10.6 lakh, hardly a huge disparity.

With the seats having remained unchanged but population growth having varied widely, today (based on 2016 mid-year population) the average MP in Rajasthan represents over 30 lakh people while the one in Tamil Nadu or Kerala represents less than 18 lakh. But that has always been the case and is inevitable since even the tiniest UT cannot have less than one MP.

Prior to the 2008 delimitation, the situation was arguably worse with even voters within the same state not having the same weight. The most extreme extreme example of this was in Delhi, where the Chandni Chowk constituency had an electorate of just 3.4 lakh while Outer Delhi had ten times the number at 33.7 lakh.

Prior to the 2008 delimitation, the situation was arguably worse with even voters within the same state not having the same weight. The most extreme extreme example of this was in Delhi, where the Chandni Chowk constituency had an electorate of just 3.4 lakh while Outer Delhi had ten times the number at 33.7 lakh.

The same is reflected elsewhere. In 2014, the five smallest constituencies together had just under 8 lakh voters while the five largest had 1.2 crore voters, 15 times more than the smallest five.

Globally too, India tops the people per MP ratio with India’s 543 MPs serving 1.5 million people each, far higher than the global average of 145,880 persons represented by an MP. Though the number of voters have risen with population growth, the number of seats in Lok Sabha has not increased since 1977. As a result, an MP today represents more than four times the number of voters than what an MP did in 1951-52, when the first general elections were held.

Percentage of women members in Lok Sabha

1952-2009

Source: PRS Legislative Research

India Today June 1, 2009

Ladies first

1952-4.4%

1957-4.5%

1962-6.7%

1967-5.8%

1971-4.9%

1977-3.8%

1980-5.7%

1985-7.9%

1989-5.2%

1991-7.6%

1996-7.4%

1998-8.1%

1999-9.2%

2004-8.7%

2009-10.7%

Productivity

1952-2019

The productivity of the 1st to the 16th Lok Sabhas, i.e. 1952-2019
From: February 14, 2019: The Times of India

See graphic:

The productivity of the 1st to the 16th Lok Sabhas, i.e. 1952-2019

1962-2019

The productivity of the 3rd to the 16th Lok Sabhas, i.e. 1962-2019
From: May 24, 2019: The Times of India

See graphic  :

The productivity of the 3rd to the 16th Lok Sabhas, i.e. 1962-2019 

1999, 2009-2019

August 8, 2019: The Times of India

16th and 17th Lok Sabhas:
First time MPs
Women MPs
From: August 8, 2019: The Times of India

The Rajya and Lok Sabhas, 1999-2019- actual hours of a sitting as a % of scheduled hours
From: August 8, 2019: The Times of India

The Rajya and Lok Sabhas, 2009-2019- the number of bills passed
From: August 8, 2019: The Times of India

Why this budget session was the most productive in decades

NEW DELHI: This budget session was one of the busiest sessions in the past 20 years. Both houses spent nearly half their time on legislative business, passing 30 bills and working more than 70 hours extra. A look at how the session panned out.

ALMOST EVERY WOMAN MP PARTICIPATED THIS SESSION

LOK SABHA BREAKS RECORD FOR MOST HOURS WORKED IN LAST 20 HOURS

In this session, Lok Sabha spent 281 hrs, or about 135% of the time it was scheduled to work — the most extra time spent working since 2000. In the past 20 years, Lok Sabha has worked only 80% of the total scheduled work hours on average. On the other hand, Rajya Sabha spent 195 hours working, about 103% of the scheduled working hours.

MOST BILLS PASSED BY BOTH HOUSES THIS SESSION IN PAST DECADE

This Parliament’s first session passed as many bills as the last seven sessions of the previous government. Indicative of the number of contentious bills passed, both houses required recorded or ballot paper votes to pass 14 bills. In most cases, a simple voice vote is enough to pass a bill 21% of this session’s LS bills were passed after a recorded vote and 23% for the RS. In the previous Lok Sabha, just 8% and 6% of LS and RS bill, respectively required recorded votes. No bill introduced in this session were referred to a Committee.

PARLIAMENT SPENT ALMOST HALF ITS TIME ON LEGISLATIVE MATTERS

While Lok Sabha spent 46% of it time on legislative business, that figure was 52%for Rajya Sabha. A whopping 36% of questions were answered orally in Lok Sabha, the most since 1999.

MANY KEY BILLS WERE PASSED NEAR THE END OF THE SESSION

Initially expected to end July 26, the Lok Sabha session was extended to August 7. Speaker Om Birla adjourned Lok Sabha a day early, calling this session “the most productive since 1952”.

Speakers of the Lok Sabha

The speakers: a table

1952- 2014 repeated, with explanatory footnotes

Speakers of the Lok Sabha, 1952- 2011

Speakers of the Lok Sabha: footnotes

Sixteenth Lok Sabha Smt.Sumitra Mahajan 5 June 2014 -

Suspension of members (MPs)

2005-19

Mohua Chatterjee, Pepper sprays to flying shawl: A history of LS pandemonium, March 6, 2020: The Times of India

Lok Sabha has witnessed suspension of members for unruly behaviour on many past occasions.

Then Speaker Sumitra Mahajan had suspended 45 members on January 2, 2019 for the rest of the session after a ruckus. She first suspended 24 ADMK members, followed by another batch of 21, which included MPs from ADMK, TDP and an unattached YSRCP member. While the ADMK members were protesting against a proposed dam over the Cauvery river, the Andhra MPs were demanding special status for their state.

On February 12, 2014, Meira Kumar had suspended 18 Andhra MPs for the rest of the Budget session after supporters and opponents of Telangana sprayed pepper in the House and indulged in fisticuffs.

In the 14th Lok Sabha, Somnath Chatterjee had stopped short of suspending Mamata Banerjee, then a TMC MP, in August 2005 when she threw a sheaf of papers at the Speaker’s chair, occupied by the then deputy speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal at that time. She then sent her resignation to the deputy Speaker and walked out.

Chatterjee turned down the resignation. He said he wanted Banerjee to return and act according to her conscience. He didn’t initiate action. Banerjee’s unruly act came after Atwal informed her that the Speaker had disallowed her notice to raise the subject of illegal Bangladeshi migration. Banerjee had earlier thrown her shawl at then Speaker Purno Sangma.

2020 March

The seven Congress Lok Sabha members who were ‘suspended’ for the rest of the session.
From: March 6, 2020: The Times of India

See graphic:

The seven Congress Lok Sabha members who were ‘suspended’ for the rest of the session.

Vote margins

1962- 2014/ Closest and widest win margins

The table shows the closest and widest win margins in Lok Sabha elections in terms of vote percentage, 1962-2014
From: March 25, 2019: The Hindu

See graphic:

The table shows the closest and widest win margins in Lok Sabha elections in terms of vote percentage, 1962-2014

See also

The 15th Lok Sabha: 2009-14/ The 16th Lok Sabha (2014-19): MPs complete list of MPs / The 16th Lok Sabha (2014-19): trends