As the date for the commencement of Eleventh Session (Monsoon Session) of the Fifth Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly coming closer, the Members of Legislative Assembly (MLA), both from the Treasury as well as the Opposition benches have started filing questions which will be taken up during Question Hour. According to the Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly, till July 8, 717 questions including 375 starred and 342 un-starred questions have been filed. More questions are likely to be filed by the Legislators, despite being a small session, every effort will be taken by the Legislators to question the government on issues pertaining to their Assembly constituencies. The Monsoon Session of the Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly will commence from July 26, 2021, as per the notification. The Monsoon Session comprising of total five sittings, will conclude on July 30, 2021.

 

The activeness and performance of Legislators in the House is gauged from the questions they raise during the Session. Of the 90 Legislators, 13 are part of the government being Ministers, hence 77 Legislators from the both Opposition and Treasury benches, who can ask questions. During the Fifth Legislative Assembly, the House has functioned for 90 days across seven Sessions and a total of 12,286 questions have been raised. From the scrutiny of the Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly records, it has came to fore that during the course of Fifth Legislative Assembly, seven full-fledged Sessions has been held and three Special Sessions was held. Since Question Hours were held during proper sessions only, so taking into considerations all the seven sessions, there were 33 Legislators who had raised questions during all these Sessions, of which, BJP Legislative Party Leader and Leader of Opposition Dharamlal Kaushik had raised the highest 358 questions while Dr K K Dhruv the Congress Legislator from Marwahi Assembly constituency had not asked a single question, during the two Sessions, which he had attended since being elected during by-election.

 

Of these 77 Legislators, there are only 16 Legislators who have raised more than 300 questions. Highest 358 numbers of questions were raised by Dharamlal Kaushik followed by 356 questions by Ajay Chandrakar and Keshav Chandra, 353 questions by Saurabh Singh, 352 questions by Santram Netam, 350 questions by Brijmohan Agrawal and 339 questions by Dharamjit Singh. Others who have crossed the 300 question marks are Daleshwar Sahu (348), Arun Vora (339), Shivratan Sharma (332), Ranjana Deependra Sahu (328), Lakheswar Baghel (323), Narayan Chandel (322), Dhanendra Sahu (307) and Prakash Naik (304). There are nine Legislators who have raised more than 200 but less than 300 questions during these Sessions. BJP National Vice President and former Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh has raised 187 questions. There are Legislators who have raised less than 50 questions which include Rampukar Singh (39), Chintamani Maharaj (36), Ambika Singhdeo and Brihaspati Singh (24), Dwarikadhish Yadav (23), Vikram Mandavi and Devati Karma (14), Mohit Ram Kerketta (12) and Devendra Bahadur Singh raised only 8 questions. As per Assembly norms, maximum four questions are granted for a Legislator for one sitting. It is not possible to hold discussions on all questions raised during the course of the Sessions, but the state government has to give written answers to all questions raised and accepted by the Legislative Assembly.