It seems that MLAs in Bhopal are in the habit of submitting questions in the assembly and then skipping the assembly when their questions come for discussion.
Between 2004- 09, as many as 784 starred questions could not be discussed because the 171 legislators who submitted these questions were not available in the house at the time of discussion.
Interestingly, the records show that many of these MLAs were present in the house on the day the questions were discussed. In other words, they were present in the assembly but did not take part in the proceedings.
Bhopal based RTI activist Rolly Shivahare obtained this information through an RTI application.
According to the data, Rasaal Singh was unavailable on 25 occasions when the questions he had submitted came for discussion. On seven of these occasions, Singh was present in the assembly.
Thakur Sobran Singh did not take part in the assembly proceedings when 21 of his questions were to be discussed. Records show that he had marked his presence in the assembly on 13 of these days.
There were 19 questions against the name of Ravindra Singh which could not be discussed because he was not available in the house. On six of these occasions, he was present in the assembly.
Department wise break-up shows that Bhopal’s agriculture department tops the list with its legislator not turning up to raise 73 questions submitted by them.
This is followed by revenue department’s 69 and panchayat department’s  61 questions.