However, a look at the individual record shows that only 29.14% of the members reported full attendance and 1.9% did not attend a single sitting (some of them did not attend on grounds of ill health).
Under instructions from Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, the Rajya Sabha secretariat personnel did an analysis of the seven sessions (248 to 254) held between 2019 and the last monsoon session that concluded in August. In the 138 sittings that took place during this period, about 225 members of the Upper House marked their attendance.
When the country was faced with the Covid pandemic, several apprehensions were voiced by Indian law-makers. This began with a reluctance to travel to the national capital to attend parliamentary committee meetings. The Parliament sessions were held with Covid protocols of social distancing, RT-PCR tests and other measures.
The highest daily attendance in these seven sessions was noted in the last (254th) session and stood at 82.57% while the lowest was reported in the previous one (253rd) at 72.88%.
The attendance improved in the last three sessions as the initial fears of Covid waned and the vaccination process began. There was virtually no impact in the last three sessions- in the 252nd session, 99 members accounting for 44.19% attended all the 10 sittings. In the 254th session, 98 members (46%) attended all 17 sittings.
The members who did not attend any sitting were as follows: two members in 248th session and 21 members in the 252nd session.
75-year-old SR Balasubramaniam attended all 138 sittings of the Rajya Sabha between 2019 to 2021. Ashok Bajpai, DP Vats, Neeraj Shekhar, Vikas Mahatme and Ramkumar Verma attended all sittings of six of the seven sessions held in this period.
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