17th LS Sitting Days
330
total days Parliament sat across 5 years (2019–2024)
National Average Attendance
79%
across all 543 Lok Sabha MPs
MPs Below 50% Attendance
62 MPs
attended fewer than half of all sessions
Asked Zero Questions
38 MPs
never submitted a question in 5 years
5-Year Cost Per MP (min)
₹2.8 Cr
salary + allowances, regardless of attendance
The 15 MPs with the worst attendance records
17th Lok Sabha (2019–2024) · attendance as % of sitting days · includes all parliamentary sessions
ℹ
How to read this: Each bar is one MP. The number is what % of parliamentary sittings they attended. MPs receive full salary and allowances regardless of this number. Red = below 50%, Orange = 50–70%, Green = above 70%.
Which parties show up more consistently?
Average attendance % across all MPs from each party · 17th Lok Sabha · sorted best to worst
ℹ
How to read this: Parties with fewer MPs tend to have more variable averages. The important comparison is the large parties — BJP (303 seats) and INC (52 seats). Smaller regional parties tend to attend more consistently.
Key Finding
The 17th Lok Sabha sat for just 330 days across five years — fewer than 66 working days a year. Despite that low bar, 62 MPs still managed to miss more than half. India's Parliament already sits among the fewest days of any major democracy. The attendance problem isn't that MPs can't make it — it's that there is no cost for not showing up.
Documented Absence · 2019–2024
Sunny Deol: ₹2.8 crore in compensation, 15% attendance
Actor-turned-MP Sunny Deol (BJP, Gurdaspur, Punjab) attended approximately 15% of parliamentary sittings during the 17th Lok Sabha. He asked a handful of questions across five years. Gurdaspur district, one of Punjab's more flood-prone regions, went largely unrepresented in parliamentary debates on agricultural distress, water management, and rural infrastructure. Deol's film shoots and public appearances were more frequent than his parliamentary visits.
Source: PRS Legislative Research — 17th Lok Sabha MP performance tracker
No Accountability Mechanism · Structural
India has no law to dock an MP's pay for absence
Article 101 of the Constitution allows a seat to be vacated only if an MP is absent for 60 consecutive days without permission — not cumulative days, consecutive. In practice, MPs routinely seek and receive leave from the Speaker, resetting the clock. No Indian law reduces an MP's salary based on attendance percentage. The UK Parliament has standards committees that can investigate prolonged absence. India has no equivalent. Multiple private member bills proposing attendance-linked pay have been introduced and never reached a vote.
Source: Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs; Article 101, Constitution of India
Cross-Party Pattern · PRS Analysis 2019–2024
38 MPs asked zero questions across the full five-year term
PRS Legislative Research found that 38 Lok Sabha MPs never submitted a single question — oral or written — during the entire 17th Lok Sabha. Questions are one of the primary tools an MP has to hold the executive accountable: they force ministers to respond on the record. An MP who asks no questions for five years is not scrutinising the government in any way. These 38 MPs represent constituencies across UP, West Bengal, Bihar, and Rajasthan.
Source: PRS Legislative Research — prsindia.org/parliamenttrack
Celebrity MPs · Recurring Pattern
Actor and cricketer MPs consistently rank among the lowest attendees
Across the 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th Lok Sabhas, MPs with active entertainment or sports careers have consistently ranked among the lowest attendees. Dharmendra (14th LS: ~16%), Govinda (14th LS: ~25%), Mimi Chakraborty and Nusrat Jahan (17th LS: 25–26%) all followed the same pattern. Parties nominate celebrity candidates to win seats, but the celebrities continue their primary careers. The constituency bears the cost of having a sitting MP who is not sitting.
Source: PRS Legislative Research; Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) candidate data