Chennai NGO honours 12 top performing MPs with Sansad Ratna awards

The award, presented at the Durbar Hall in Raj Bhavan here, was instituted by the city-based NGO Prime Point Foundation (PPF) and eMagazine PreSense.

The award were given to nine Lok Sabha MPs, one Standing Committee from the 16th Lok Sabha and two retired Rajya Sabha Members, for their outstanding performance.

Union Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Arjun Ram Meghwal were present on the occasion.

The awards were presented to Supriya Sule (Nationalist Congress Party, Baramati Constituency, Maharashtra), Shrirang Appa Barne (Shiv Sena, Maval, Maharashtra), Rajeev Shankarrao Satav (Indian National Congress, Hingoli, Maharashtra), Dhanjay Bhimrao Mahadik (Nationalist Congress Party, Kolhapur, Maharashtra) and Dr Heena Gavit (BJP Nandurbar, Maharashtra) for their outstanding performance in the total tally of initiated debates, private members’ bills, and questions under different categories.

Bartruhari Mahtab (Biju Janata Dal, Cuttack, Odisha) and N K Premachandran (Revolutionary Socialist Party, Kollam, Kerala) were presented awards for their outstanding performance in the ‘Debates’ category.

Nishikant Dubey (BJP, Godda, Jharkhand) got the award under ‘Private Members Bills’ category. Anurag Thakur (BJP, Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh) received the award for his distinguished performance under ‘Jury Committee Special Award’. Rajani Patil (Indian National Congress, Maharashtra) and Ananda Bhaskar Rapolu (Indian National Congress, Telangana) were presented the awards for their outstanding performance among the Rajya Sabha MPs, retired in 2018.

Among the Departmentally Related Standing Committees, the Finance Committee bagged the award for Sansad Ratna Awards based on the number of reports presented, subjects selected and sittings held by them.

Dr M Veerappa Moily (Indian National Congress) is the Chairman of the Finance Committee.

PPF Chairman Awards Founder K Srinivasan said the award winners were selected by a Jury of eminent Parliamentarians in a transparent manner based on the performance data provided by the Lok Sabha Secretariat and PRS Legislative Research.

The awards were instituted in 2010 on the suggestion of Former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, with the objective of recognising and celebrating the top performers of the Parliament.