Vital Stats

The Election Commission recently announced the poll schedule for the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. In this context, we present data on the composition of the 16^th Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly (2012-2017) and trends in participation of the Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs).
Average age of MLAs is 55 years; over 70% have a graduate degree
Note: N.A.: Data is not available.	Note: N.A.: Data is not available
Out of the current MLAs, 62% are between the age of 45 years and 65 years, while just 2% are below the age of 35 years. Note that the minimum age for contesting elections is 25 years. Of the 404 MLAs, 13% completed secondary school (10^th standard), while 15% completed intermediate (12^th standard). Additionally, 31% have a graduate degree and 36% obtained a post graduate degree. Several MLAs declared more than one profession. 76% of MLAs declared that they were associated with agriculture, 33% MLAs with business and 9% with law. Some of the other professions MLAs are associated with are teaching, healthcare, journalism and social work.
MLAs with college degrees asked more questions; female MLAs asked fewer questions
On average MLAs with college degrees asked 70% more questions than MLAs without college degrees.	Female MLAs constitute 9% of the Assembly. On average male MLAs asked over thrice the number of questions as female MLAs.
About 15% of MLAs asked 90% of questions
	Question hour is an important mechanism empowering legislators to elicit information from the government on matters of public interest. It is used by legislators to hold the government accountable for its actions. Facts relating to the entire range of governmental activities, policies, etc. can be asked for, and Ministers are answerable for their Ministry’s actions. On average each MLA asked 32 questions. Three MLAs asked more than 500 questions each. 58% of MLAs did not ask any question.
Attendance of ruling party MLAs was higher than opposition MLAs; ruling party MLAs asked fewer questions
Note: Data on attendance is available upto December 2015. The 16^th Legislative Assembly met for a total of 126 days. Of this, data is publically available for 107 sitting days (until 2015). The average attendance of Samajwadi Party (SP) MLAs is the highest with 78% and that of the Bahujan Samaj Party MLAs is the lowest on average with 70%.	MLAs from the ruling SP asked fewer questions on average (about 4 per MLA) compared to MLAs from the opposition parties (about 70 per MLA). This differs from the trend in Parliament where there is little difference between the number of questions asked by MPs from the ruling or opposition parties.
Sources: Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly and Election Commission websites as on December 1, 2016. DISCLAIMER: This document is being furnished to you for your information. You may choose to reproduce or redistribute this report for non-commercial purposes in part or in full to any other person with due acknowledgement of PRS Legislative Research (“PRS”). The opinions expressed herein are entirely those of the author(s). PRS makes every effort to use reliable and comprehensive information, but PRS does not represent that the contents of the report are accurate or complete. PRS is an independent, not-for-profit group. This document has been prepared without regard to the objectives or opinions of those who may receive it.