Mumbai: Amin Patel has been ranked as the top performing Members of Legislative Assembly (MLA) in Mumbai for the third consecutive year with 82.92% score in the latest MLA Report Card released by the Praja Foundation. On the other hand, Nawab Malik has been ranked at the bottom with only 18% scored. The MLA Report Card highlighted that the 14th Assembly worked for only 119 days, which is 43% lower than 210 working days in the 12th Assembly.
Praja Foundation, which has been working towards enabling accountable governance, through its wide array of initiatives, has been releasing report cards for MLAs, corporators and bureaucrats for over a decade. Recently, the organisation released its 12th Mumbai MLA Report Card which assessed the performance of MLAs over the last year from budget session 2023 to budget session 2024. The report card also assessed the consolidated performance of MLAs who served a minimum of three years in the assembly as well as the overall productivity of the 14th Maharashtra State Assembly.
According to the report card, Indian National Congress’ Amin Patel from Mumbadevi constituency scored the top position for the third consecutive year with a score of 82.92%. Patel was ranked first for attendance in the assembly as well as for his clean criminal record, whereas he was ranked second for the number of questions asked in the assembly and the quality of those questions. Patel is the only MLA out of the total 34 MLAs to achieve a score above 80% in 2024.
Similarly, Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Sunil Waman Prabhu from Dindoshi constituency was ranked second with 78.71% score and INC’s Varsha Gaikwad followed them for the third rank with 76.51%. The highest ranking MLAs also included Bharatiya Janata Party’s Manisha Chaudhary from Dahisar constituency and INC’s Aslam Shaikh from Malad constituency. The MLAs are ranked on the basis of their legislative performance that includes attendance, number and quality of questions, utilisation of area development funds as well as MLA profile that includes education qualification, criminal cases and financial records.
The report also highlighted the five lowest ranking MLAs which included Nationalist Congress Party’s Nawab Malik from Anushakti Nagar at the bottom with 18%, Shiv Sena’s Sadanand Sarvankar from Mahim with 27.27%, Shiv Sena’s Prakash Surve from Magathane with 29.82%, Shiv Sena’s Dilip Lande from Chandivali with 31.26% and BJP’s Ramchandra Kadam from Ghatkopar (W) with 33.07% score. The examination of the performance of political parties based on the performance of their MLAs revealed that the INC ranked first with 72.56%, followed by BJP with 60.08%.
Milind Mhaske, CEO of Praia Foundation, said, “There has been a noticeable decline in the overall performance. This trend is particularly troubling, given the challenges that the state has faced in recent years. The most significant decline is observed in the performance of the five lowest-scoring MLAs, who averaged a score of 48.13% in the 13th Assembly which dropped further to 34.18% in the 14th Assembly. This fall in performance is worrying, as it indicates that these MLAs are not fulfilling their constitutional roles as representatives of the people.”
The report card also highlighted that the 14th Assembly worked for only 119 days with a 43% decrease in comparison to the 12th assembly, which worked for a total of 210 days. Following the decrease in working days, the number of questions asked by the legislators also declined by 73% from 40,512 in the 12th Assembly to 11,132 in the 14th Assembly. However, the attendance of the MLAs in the assembly sessions was averaged at 89%. Praja’s report also cited PRS Legislative Research’s report which said that Maharashtra assembly stood 7th in terms of number of working days amongst 19 state assemblies from 2020 to 2023.
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Eknath Pawar, Associate Manager of Praja Foundation, said, “While the COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly affected the functioning and resulted in fewer deliberations. However, the average attendance during this period was recorded at 93%, which hints that the MLAs were more active during the pandemic. We believe that the scope of these deliberations should have been expanded during this period if needed by leveraging technology. Increased legislative activity during the pandemic would have ensured a more comprehensive and effective crisis response.”
