Over the years, sittings of the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies have increasingly become shorter, a point that Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla raised in an address to the newly elected members of the Maharashtra Assembly on February 10. Birla is not the only one to have highlighted the decreasing length of legislative sessions. Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Derek O’Brien introduced a Private Members’ Bill in the Rajya Sabha during the Budget Session calling for a minimum of 100 days of sittings in Parliament each year along with a fixed calendar. In the states, too, shorter Assembly sessions with fewer working days have been raised as an issue. In Madhya Pradesh, for instance, the Congress earlier this month demanded a longer Budget Session of 21 days instead of nine. In Goa, Opposition parties protested against the last two-day Winter Session, calling it a “mockery of the Constitution” and a “murder of democracy”. And in Himachal Pradesh last December, the Congress and BJP faced off over a four-day Winter Session. Data from the PRS Legislative Research, the Lok Sabha and state legislatures show that the number of working days of legislatures has been dropping considerably in recent years. Lok Sabha Data compiled by the PRS Legislative Research shows that from an average of 135 sitting days annually of its tenure in the first Lok Sabha (1952 to 1957), the 17th Lok Sabha (2019 to 2024) saw an annual average of only 55 sitting days. After the first Lok Sabha, the next highest average annual sitting days was 123 during the tenure of the fourth Lok Sabha (1967 to 1971), which was dissolved ahead of schedule owing to the then Congress-led minority government’s tenuous position. Since the sixth Lok Sabha (1977 to 1980), the Lower House has not worked for more than an annual average of 100 days. The previous 11 Lok Sabha have had fewer than 100 sitting days per year. The 17th Lok Sabha, the second Narendra Modi-led government, held the fewest average annual sittings at 55, a decline from 66 in the 16th Lok Sabha and 71 in the 15th Lok Sabha, during which the Congress-led UPA was in power. The number of Bills passed, however, has varied, with shorter sessions in recent years producing more Bills than considerably longer sessions in the past. For instance, the 17th Lok Sabha passed 40 more Bills than the 14th Lok Sabha (2004 to 2009) despite holding sittings for 10 fewer days on average per year. Bills have increasingly been passed with limited debate or without referring them to committees. State Assemblies Among the 22 states for which data on the duration of Assembly sessions is available going back at least three terms, just two states have seen their average annual sitting days increase between the previous two complete terms, with the remaining 20 seeing a decline. For instance, the 13th Gujarat Assembly (2012 to 2017) recorded an average of 28 sitting days annually. The same figure for the 14th Assembly (2017 to 2022) stood at 29, amounting to only a marginal increase. The figures for the 14th (2013 to 2018) and 15th (2018 to 2023) Rajasthan Assemblies are the exact same as those for the Gujarat Assembly. However, for both states, the ongoing Assembly terms have seen a decline in sitting days, down to 25 in Gujarat and 27 in Rajasthan. The biggest decline in the number of sitting days was in Telangana, where it fell 42.3% from 26 to 15 between the first (2014 to 2018) and second (2018 to 2023) Assemblies. Madhya Pradesh was next, going from 27 to 16 from the 14th (2013 to 2018) to the 15th Assembly (2018 to 2023), a decline of 40.7%. In Maharashtra, the decline was 38.6% from 44 days in the 13th Assembly (2014 to 2019) to 27 days in the 14th Assembly (2019 to 2024). On the other hand, the smallest decline, at 6.4%, was in Kerala, where the 13th Assembly (2011 to 2016) met for an average of 47 days a year before dropping to 44 in the 14th Assembly (2016 to 2021). In three states, the ongoing Assembly’s term has recorded a higher or equal number of average annual sitting days compared to the previous two Assembly terms. In Bihar, the ongoing 17th Assembly (2020 to 2025) and the previous 16th Assembly (2015 to 2020) both saw an average of 31 sitting days per year. In Madhya Pradesh, the 15th and ongoing 16th Assemblies have each worked for an average of 16 days a year. In West Bengal, though, while the previous 16th Assembly (2016 to 2021) recorded an average of 33 sitting days, the ongoing 17th Assembly is at 35. The ongoing terms of every other Assembly have recorded a decline from the previous two complete terms. Among the ongoing Assemblies that have completed more than a year since their election, Kerala has the highest average annual sitting days at 40, followed by West Bengal at 35, and Bihar at 31. The lowest annual average sittings have been held in Uttarakhand at seven, Himachal Pradesh at 11, and Punjab at 12.
