india

Updated: Jun 22, 2019 09:23 IST

Four women Lok Sabha MPs who have been appointed whips by the Bharatiya Janata Party have their task cut out -- to handhold first-time colleagues in the Lower House and walk them through the nitty-gritty of parliamentary procedures and legislative business, persons aware of matter said.

The four whips are Ranjanben Bhatt, MP from Gujarat’s Vadodara; Shobha Karandlaje from Karnataka’s Udupi Chikmagalur; Locket Chatterjee from Bengal’s Hooghly; and Pratima Bhowmik from Tripura West.

In line with the constituency/region each has been elected from, Bhatt will assist MPs from the western states, Karandlaje will guide MPs from the southern states, Chatterjee will be in charge of MPs from the eastern region and Bhowmik will help MPs from Tripura, Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh.

Barring Karandlaje and Bhatt, the others are first-timers themselves.

From familiarising the new MPs with the Parliament to helping them grasp the minutiae of legislative processes, the four have been specifically instructed to make sure their wards are not at sea with complicated procedures. According to a functionary aware of developments, it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s idea to appoint women whips to help first-timers. “All new women MPs have been divided into groups of four. These groups have been made on the basis of region,” the functionary said, requesting not to be named.

“The role of the whips will be to support, guide and assist the other women MPs on how to prepare questions, prepare for discussions and name interventions,” the functionary added.

Last week, first-time Bhopal MP Pragya Singh Thakur had stirred a row during the oath-taking ceremony by reading out her spiritual guru’s name after her own. She had to eventually re-read her oath. It is such gaffes that the whips are expected to prevent. A whip is mandated to ensure that party MPs allow smooth conduct of business.

Chatterjee, who heads a group of 12 MPs, said, “We have regular meetings in Parliament and discuss how MPs need to prepare for legislative business such as when a Bill is introduced in the House, the need to be present and maintaining discipline.”

The 17th Lok Sabha has the highest number of women MPs ever, with 78 elected from across the country, of whom 46 are first-timers. The BJP has 20 first-time MPs.