Education ups attendance of MPS, criminal history lowers it
in debates, questions asked, and authoring of private member bills. I focus on attendance because it should be equally expected of each MP — unlike the other measures which may be a function of the salience of the issue at hand to the MP.
In this sample, the average parliamentary attendance among MPS is 80%. Larger parties, which have greater scope for affecting legislation, display higher rates of attendance. MPS from the six largest parties in the Lok Sabha, each with at least 15 seats and comprising 75% of the sample, had an average attendance of 82%, while the MPS from smaller parties had an average attendance of 72%.
In order to analyse regular attendance, I focus on understanding who attends Parliament at least 90% of the time (the attendance rate of the 80th percentile in the sample). The raw difference in attendance between those with pending serious cases and those without them may not mean much, as those with pending cases also tend to be wealthier (and also have other characteristics in common).
To further isolate the impact of MP characteristics on attendance, I run a statistical model that simultaneously estimates the probability of regular attendance by an MP as a function of the MP’S pending serious criminal cases, level of education, moveable asset wealth, political party, and home state. The results reported here reach the levels of “statistical significance” that statisticians use to characterise meaningful empirical patterns.
CHART 1
Figure 1 shows that less education and criminality are associated with poorer parliamentary attendance. An MP with a postgraduate degree with average moveable wealth and no serious crimi- nal cases has a 25% predicted probability of attending Parliament regularly, 62% more than an MP with the same characteristics but with less education. Of greater interest, an MP without serious criminal cases with mean moveable wealth and no postgraduate degree has a 15% predicted probability of regular attendance, twice as much as an MP with the same characteristics but with a pending serious criminal case.
CHART 2
Figure 2 shows the wealthier the MP, the less likely he/she is to attend Parliament regularly. MPS with between ~10 lakh and ~50 lakh of moveable wealth, with no serious cases or postgraduate degree, have a 16% predicted probability of regular attendance, while crorepati MPS (in terms of moveable wealth) with the same characteristics have a 10% predicted probability of regular attendance.
There is robust statistical evidence that wealthier MPS, as well as those with pending serious cases, are less likely to attend Parliament regularly. Given the rising costs of running electoral campaigns, the trend towards more criminality and wealth in Indian politics is likely to continue. As India’s political class undergoes rapid transformation, it’s time we take greater stock of parliamentary performance or of our political representatives.