Maharashtra MPs make a clean sweep of Sansadratna awards

Five Members of Parliament (MPs) from Maharashtra and one from Odisha, belonging to different parties, today won the best parliamentary performance award from a civil society organisation Prime Point Foundation. 

Former Union  Minister and senior Congress leader M. Veerappa Moily, Chairman of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, won a special award for heading the parliamentary standing committee on finance in the 16th Lok Sabha.

The Sansad Ratna Awards 2018, instituted nine years ago by the Chennai-based NGO which also runs an e-magazine PreSense, has been giving these awards based on inputs received by Parliament and the PRSI. The awards were instituted at the suggestion of late President APJ Abdul Kalam as civil society recognition for MPs' outstanding performance in the Parliament.

 The six MPs from Lok Sabha received their award -- a citation and a shawl -- from former West Bengal Governor and National Security Advisor M K Narayanan and former Chief Election Commissioner TS Krishnamurthy at a function held in collaboration with IIT Madras.

The MPs who received the awards were Bhartruhari Mahtab (Biju Janata Dal, Cuttack, Odisha), Supriya Sule (Nationalist Congress Party, Baramati, Maharashtra), Shrirang Appa Barne (Shiv Sena, Mavel, Maharashtra), Rajeev Shankarrao Satav (Indian National Congress, Hingoli, Maharashtra) and Dhananjay Bhimrao Mahadik (Nationalist Congress Party, Kolhapur, Maharashtra) under different categories.

The selection of individual awardees is based on the performance parameters like initiated debates, private members’ bills, questions raised and attendance in the House. 

The data is provided by Lok Sabha Secretariat and PRS India. Dr Heena Vijayakumar Gavit (Bharatiya Janata Party, Nandurbar, Maharaashtra) won the award under the Women MP category. 

For the first time from this year ,  one ‘Departmentally Related Standing Committee’ of Parliament is being honoured based on criteria like the reports presented, the number of sittings held and the number of subjects selected, and others.

Since 2015, Prime Point Foundation and PreSense have been honouring outstanding Rajya Sabha Members, who had retired in the previous year, after completing the full six-year term.  Shantharam Laxman Naik (Indian National Congress, Goa) was nominated for this year's award under Rajya Sabha category. He retired from Rajya Sabha in 2017.

A Jury Committee headed by Anandrao Adsul (fifth time MP), along with Hansraj G Ahir (Minister of State - Home and fourth time MP) and Arjun Ram Meghwal (Minister of State – Parliamentary Affairs and second time MP) selected the award winners.

The jury committee members, who were outstanding Parliamentarians themselves in terms of their performance in the Parliament, were honoured with the 'Sansad Maha Ratna' Awards for their sustained performance in the 15th Lok Sabha.

While Prime Point Foundation chairman and founder K Srinivasan recalled the history of how the sansadratna journey began, the executive president Bhavnesh Deora listed the achievements of the award winners. IIT Madras Director Bhaskar and Head of Humanities Dr Sudarsan also spoke on the occasion.

NNN