The new House is still six phases away but the performance rankings of the outgoing MPs have a story to tell about the 16th Lok Sabha.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi and party chairperson Sonia Gandhi were placed at the bottom of India Today's 16th Lok Sabha MP Rankings that looked at the relative legislative performance of outgoing MPs.



Rahul Gandhi was ranked 387th and Sonia 381st among the total 416 MPs who were assessed in the rankings based on publicly available and quantifiable indicators.



India Today's Data Intelligence Unit looked at five data points - attendance record, number of questions asked, number of private member Bills introduced, utilisation of the MPLADS fund and citizen perception about governance.



As many as 11 of the 39 Congress MPs who were ranked got D or D+ while of the total 195 BJP MPs ranked, 33 got D or D+.



Top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - including the Prime Minister and Union ministers - could not be ranked due to limited availability of data. For instance, Union ministers, Lok Sabha Speaker, deputy Speaker and leader of Opposition are not required to sign the attendance register. Hence, comparison of top leaders of the two major national parties is not possible.



This is indeed not the most definitive ranking, and the current methodology comes with certain conditions. For instance, the ranking gives a higher score to a higher number of questions asked or private member Bills introduced, but it can't gauge its quality or effectiveness.



(For details on methodology, read this)



The Congress president had 52 per cent attendance, spent Rs 19.6 crore of the total Rs 25 crore available to MPs under the MPLADS scheme for development work in his constituency. While Rahul did set the Opposition agenda in certain Lok Sabha debates, he did not ask any questions during the designated question hour session or introduce any private member Bills which carry weight in the ranking framework. Sonia Gandhi's record is similar, with slightly higher attendance at 60 per cent.



