HRD minister Smriti Irani & water resources minister Uma Bharti have 100% attendance; score over male counterparts

NEW DELHI: They might be outnumbered by male counterparts but women ministers in Team Modi seem to attend Cabinet meetings more than their colleagues.

Information accessed by ET through Right to Information (RTI) Act shows that unlike Congress-led UPA regime, BJP’s allies are more involved in the decision-making process at the Centre with ministers regularly attending meetings.

The top performers as far as attending Cabinet meetings are concerned are human resource development minister Smriti Zubin Irani and water resources minister Uma Bharti who have not missed a single Cabinet meeting since the Modi government assumed power and held its first Cabinet meeting on May 27 last year. Chemicals and fertilisers minister Ananth Kumar and agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh finish a close second missing only one meeting so far.

The two BJP ministers are followed by science and technology minister Harshvardhan, minority affairs minister Najma Heptullah, civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju and consumer affairs minister Ramvilas Paswan. Worst attendees are urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu, heavy industries minister Anant Geete and home minister Rajnath Singh. Though data on attendance of ministers is not separately maintained by the Cabinet Secretariat, the public authority where ET filed an RTI application, the public information officer (PIO) allowed this correspondent file inspection of only the attendance sheet of the confidential Cabinet meetings files.

The data was collated for meetings held between May and December 2014. It reveals that BJP’s allies are far more conscientious in attending Cabinet meetings than some of BJP’s own ministers. Paswan (Lok Janshakti Party), Ashok Gajapathi Raju (TDP) and Harsimrat Kaur Badal (SAD) fare better than BJP ministers including Venkaiah Naidu, home minister Rajnath Singh and tribal affairs minister Jual Oram.