Click to play videoMumbai: Bollywood actor and sitting MP from North Mumbai Govinda doesn't just arrive late on film sets; the funnyman also has the record for the skipping the highest number of Lok Sabha meetings in the last 17 sessions of Parliament. As a result of the actor’s truancy, his absence in Parliament, as well as constituency, has become a rallying point for his opponents.
When the Finance Minister P Chidambaram presented the Union Budget for 2008-09, Parliament probably saw its highest attendance levels, except for Govinda. The MP was otherwise occupied with film shoots, functions and football matches.
Latest Parliament records show that the actor has attended just 10 per cent of all the Parliament sessions in the past three years.
Govinda had had a relatively good year in 2005, attending 15 sessions out of 85. The numbers were less pleasing the following when his attendance fell to seven out of 77. 2007 saw the worst with the actor attending only two sessions out of 66.
But now, the actor’s political opponents are already out with sharpened knives.
"He has a dismal record as far as Parliament functioning is concerned. The issues of this constituency are connected to the central government. The MP is missing, people are irritated and agitated," said former Union Minister and North Mumbai’s ex-MP, Ram Naik.
Govinda’s list of crimes grows for not only has the actor skipped Parliament, but he has not been in his constituency either.
“The state of Virar-Vasai local trains are in such a way that several passengers have been killed till date,” said the president of NGO Yuva Bharat, Yogesh Varma.
“A member of Parliament who does not even go to Parliament, how can he talk about our problems or issues or our development?” wondered member of Center for Effective Governance, Vineet Goyenka.
Parliament records also show that the actor has spoken only twice in the House – on May 10 and 11, 2005, for a minute each during zero hour.
Interestingly for a man of few words, the actor has quite a few things to say in his defense.
“How can only one man do political work? A man is bound by his constraints… We are not that sacrificing, we are artists, we can't go beyond a limit to prove how big a politician we are,” Govinda heatedly said, adding that he was being targeted by his opponents as part of a political strategy against him.
North Mumbai is one of the most densely populated constituencies in the country with several unaddressed issues and with talk of elections heating the air, this celebrity MP surely needs to pull up his socks because his voters are in no mood to turn the other cheek.
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