ISLAMABAD - The MNAs claimed to be the champion of rights of their constituency’s voters hardly mark presence in parliament, as some of the main lawmakers remained at top for showing lack of interest in nearly four years of the current National Assembly.

Around eight lawmakers from main political parties missed nearly 300 sittings of the lower house of parliament but claimed to provide relief to masses in each of their interaction with media.

Over two dozens of MNAs also in the list for not marking their presence in the house for over 200 times (out f total 359) due to different reasons, according to the data made available with The Nation.

Over hundred of regular MNAs mainly from treasury benches are also there in house for missing around 40 proceedings, breakup compiled by FAFEN revealed.

Main MNAs including Nawaz Sharif from ruling party (PML-N), Imran Khan (PTI), Faryal Talpur (PPP), Pervaiz Elahi (PML-Q),  Hamza Shehbaz (PML-N), Amir Haider Hoti (ANP) and other remained absent from proceedings of the house over 300 times in total of 359 sittings (including joint session of the parliament).

The graph of attendance, according to the breakup, is starts from 99 per cent to a single digit six per cent during this period of time.

Although these lawmakers claimed to defend rights of people from their constituencies but over hundred elected members are also in the house for missing over half of the proceedings.

Pir Sadurdin Shah (Minister), Zafrullah Khan Jamali, Fehmida Mirza, Tehmina Doultana, Raza Hayat Hiraj, Muhammad Khan Sheerani ,Javed Ali Shah, Tariq Cheema, Khalid Maqbol and other among in this list.

The performance of parliamentary leaders in terms of their presence show that Naveed Qamar from PPP (72 per cent), PML-Q’s Pervaiz Elahi (14 per cent), Farooq Sattar from MQM (21 per cent), Fazul-ur-Rahman from JUI-F (26 per cent), Essa Noori from BNP (37 per cent), Ghulam Ahmed Bilour from ANP (58 per cent), Usman Khan Tarrakai (62 per cent), Mehmood Khan Achakzai from PkMAP (81 per cent) and PTI’s Chief Imran Khan (six per cent).

It is common objection of opposition that front rows of National Assembly often remained empty during the proceedings of the house. The attendance graph of half of ministers of PML-N government is testimony of fact as over ten ministers missed attended nearly 40 per cent of the proceedings.

The available figures of minister’s attendance show that Sheikh Aftab Ahmed remained at the top with 99 per cent of attendance. Mian Riaz Pirzada (90 per cent), Usman Ibrahim (80 per cent), Zahimd Hamid (78 per cent), Abdul Qadir Balcoh (76 per cent), Ahsan Iqbal (38 per cent), Akram Durrani (44 per cent) etc.

The opposition parties, since the start, had kept raising the issue of prime minister’s absence from both the houses (National Assembly and Senate) as Nawaz Sharif’s attendance is also 17 percent in the lower house.

The opposition parties due to continuous absence of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had once tacitly threatened to move article-64 against PM for abstaining the National Assembly sessions without getting formal approval for it from the Speaker National Assembly.

According to clause two of Article 64, a member could lose his seat in case he remains absent from the house without securing proper leave from the Speaker National Assembly for 40 consecutive days.

The available figure shows that Leader of Opposition Syed Khursheed Shah had attended 272 proceedings of the house and his attendance was 76 per cent in four years. Whereas, Speaker National Assembly Ayaz Sadiq and Deputy Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi had attended over 85 per cent of the session till last session of NA.

The disinterest level of many of MNAs could also be gauged as some of them hardly participate in the proceeding even after taking seats in the house.