TMC's Santanu Sen lead questioner during Rajya Sabha's 250th Session

New Delhi: Trinamool Congress's member in Rajya Sabha Santanu Sen emerged as the lead questioner during the 250th Session of the Upper House, while AIADMK's A Vijay Kumar is the lead questioner during the 249th session of the Upper House. Kumar has also emerged as leader questioner for both the sessions of the Upper House – 249th and 250th.

The revelation in this regard has come into notice after Rajya Sabha Secretariat conducted an analysis of the participation of the members in the Question Hour during the 249th and 250th sessions on the guidance of Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu to know the details regarding the extent of opportunities that members get to raise questions.

As per the report, Sen had asked seven questions during the recently concluded historic 205th session of the Upper House, while Kumar had also asked seven questions during 249th session. Kumar has raised highest number of 13 Starred Questions during the last two sessions of Rajya Sabha and Sen raised 10 Starred Questions during the last two sessions. As per the report, the analysis of 660 Starred Questions, including 375 listed for 25 question days during the 249th Session and 285 listed for 19 question days during the 250th Session revealed that 75 per cent and 65 per cent of the members got opportunities to raise Starred Questions during the last two Sessions respectively.

With the Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha and 13 Union Ministers from the Upper House not submitting notices of questions, an effective strength of 226 members was considered for the analysis. As per the findings, 177 members raised questions during the 249th session and 146 during the 250th.

Interestingly, during the 249th session, 49 members did not raise any Starred Question while this number was 80 in case of the 250th Session. Notably, Congress' Ahmed Patel and Abhishek Manu Singhvi, TMC's Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, MDMK's Vaiko and RJD's Manoj Jha got one question each listed against them.

Lead questioners during the last two sessions combined include AIADMK's A Vijay Kumar (13), BJP's Harnath Singh Yadav (11), TMC's Santanu Sen (10). With nine questions, TRS's Banda Prakash, BJP's Ram Nath Thakur, BJP's Amar Shankar Sable, BJP's Vinay P Sahasrabuddhe are at the fourth position. AIADMK's Sasikala Pushpa Ramaswamy 7 Questions was in the lead among the 25 women members of the House.