Mangalore, Mar 29: Here's a heartening news for supporters of Nalin Kumar Kateel. The Mangalore MP from BJP has been ranked 24th in the country, way ahead of even AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi, in a performance report card prepared by an organization.
The list was prepared by Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS), a Kerala-based organization, ranking the list of members of parliament based on perception score, parliament performance, and expenditure under MPs Local Area Development Fund.
The list, prepared by the organization after collecting details under Rights to Information Act and statistics provided by the government, has given top ranking to P T Thomas, who represents Idukki constituency in Kerala.
The organization says that the ADR perception score, taken from Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) survey, is based on employment opportunities, drinking water, roads, public transport, electric supply, hospitals/primary healthcare centres, schools, law and order/policing, empowerment of women and security for women. It has said that India Today experts Ashok Lahiri, Arvind Virmani, Surjit S Bhalla and Bibek Debroy had worked out a methodology for combining the two rankings and create a comprehensive report card. Equal weightage was given to all the three parameters, perception score, parliament performance, and MPLAD fund. Attendance, questions asked in parliament, participation in discussions, and other factors have been considered before preparing ranking list, it is learnt.
As per the list, Nalin Kumar Kateel representing Dakshina Kannada constituency has been ranked 24 at the national level. His report card says he has raised 242 questions in the parliament and has an attendance of 71.3 percent. He has performance score of 6.5 and voter satisfaction score of 8.08. He has spent Rs 15.96 crore out of the 19 crore MP available fund, it states.
The data on Udupi-Chikmagalur MP Jayaprakash Hegde is not available, but says he has an attendance of 79.1 percent in parliament and has raised 49 questions in his short tenure.
Ananth Kumar (Bangalore south) has been ranked 139, while Adagoor Vishwanath from Mysore has been given the ranking of 193.
By comparison, Rahul Gandhi has got a distant 355th rank, with no questions raised in the parliament and an attendance of 42.6 percent. R Dhruvanarayana (Congress) from Chamarajanagar has been ranked fifth. The others who have earned laurels of experts are Jaiprakash Aggarwal from New Delhi (northeast), and Ramasubbu from Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, as per the report.
