In the second part of our three-part series on the performance of regional parties in the parliament, we analyse the J&K National Conference president Farooq Abdullah, who won the Srinagar seat which fell vacant after Tariq Hamid Karra resigned following his falling out with the Peoples Democratic Party.
A three-time veteran, Abdullah has a decent track record for the two years he has been in office as Member of Parliament. He has attended the House regularly, registering a 71 percent attendance. This is lower than the national average but much higher than that of PDP MPs. In fact, compared to Muzaffar Hussain Baig, it is almost seven times higher, and twice that of the PDP MP he replaced (Tariq Karra).
However, Abdullah has not been very participative in his this term. He has participated in two debates in two years. Compared to this, Muzaffar Hussain Baig has participated in three debates in his five-year-long stint in the parliament. Abdullah has fared worse than all the MPs in gathering information and holding ministers accountable for their performance. He has just asked 13 questions.
Even though the NC MP has fared much better than his PDP colleagues, he has fared very poorly compared to the Jammu MPs. Combining the three indicators of performance, attendance, participation in debates and seeking information as questions, into an index, the score of Abdullah is 25.6 out of 100. This stands in very poor light when compared with a score of 75.8 out of 100 for the Jammu MPs. It is however twice as good as that of PDP MPs who scored just 13.9 out of 100.