Sonia tells Cong managers to check attendance of MPs

Peeved by poor attendance of Congress MPs in Parliament at a time when the government is facing tough challenges from the Opposition, party president Sonia Gandhi today gave a talking to to the floor managers, asking them to ensure attendance or “quit the post”.

She has also decided to appoint a set of conveners each to look after the Congress’ state-wise attendance in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

“She is particularly peeved by the fact that there was very poor attendance of Congress members when the Right to Education Bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha,” said a minister considered close to Gandhi.

According to the party’s estimate, only 25 of its members were in the Upper House at that time. The Bill, an important social sector initiative, is also one of the pet issues of Gandhi.

An annoyed Gandhi decided not to waste more time and called the meeting of party conveners on Wednesday morning. According to a leader present in the meeting, “she looked very annoyed. She told us if we can’t do our job properly (to ensure the attendance of MPs), then we have no right to occupy the posts.”

The Congress had appointed a convener for each state to look after the attendance of the MPs from respective states in both Houses of Parliament. But the decision yielded little result, as the first session of the 15th Lok Sabha witnessed poor attendance of Congress MPs. Even on Tuesday, when all the Opposition parties together launched an attack against the government on the end-user pact of the Indo-US defence agreement, not many Congress MPs were seen in the Lok Sabha to help the government managers.

To make a point, Gandhi remained present during the first few hours of the Lok Sabha today and even listened intently when BJP’s Sushma Swaraj attacked the UPA government over internal security issues.

This is not the first time Gandhi has expressed her unhappiness over the poor attendance of the MPs. On various other occasions Gandhi had repeatedly appealed to all her party MPs to attend Parliament regularly. Last year, she issued a show-cause notice to all MPs including ministers like Mani Shankar Aiyar when they were absent during passing of some legislation even as the Left parties forced a vote on some amendments.

In almost all her speeches at the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) meetings, Gandhi has reiterated the importance of attending the Houses to her MPs. But now, she has decided to become stricter especially after she found that her favourite Bill got passed because the Opposition didn’t have enough numbers.

While Gandhi today ordered more attendance, party managers privately admit that it’s very difficult to ensure attendance during the post-lunch period of the of the day as many MPs leave the House for other engagements.