First, simply attending. Legislators from Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party have been most impressive in this regard, with their average attendance rate working out to 90%. MLAs from the Samajwadi Party and Bharatiya Janata Party have also been regular, attending 86%-88% of the sessions. Members of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena had the worst attendance, but did surprisingly well in other metrics of performance in the assembly.
A large part of activity in the assembly involves asking questions. However, only a few parties seemed interested in the process. Legislators from the MNS asked more questions than those from any other party, asking over 6,000 questions. The Congress managed 5,500. In comparison, legislators from the NCP look positively lazy: they asked only 230 questions over their five-year terms.
The Maharashtra assembly has had 16 sessions since November 2009. Neither of the major national parties, BJP and Congress, proposed a single bill. The NCP proposed only one bill over these five years. The Shiv Sena was the most active, introducing 13 bills. The MNS proposed six bills.
MNS’ legislative representatives spent a whopping 106.5% of their allocated development funds. But the differences are smaller here. The NCP, which spent the least on average, exhausted 98.5% of their allocations.