Outstanding Parliamentarian Award

The Outstanding Parliamentarian Award is an award given by the Indian Parliamentary Group to an outstanding sitting Member of the Indian Parliament for overall contribution in the Indian Parliament. It was instituted in 1995 by Shivraj Patil, who was the Speaker of Lok Sabha from 1991 to 1996.^[1]

Recipients

List of Outstanding Parliamentarian Awards Winner

Year	Laureates		Party
1995		Chandra Shekhar[1]		SJP(R)
1996		Somnath Chatterjee[1]		CPI(M)
1997		Pranab Mukherjee[1]		INC
1998		Jaipal Reddy[1]		JD
1999		Lal Krishna Advani[1]		BJP
2000		Arjun Singh[1]		INC
2001		Jaswant Singh[1]		BJP
2002		Manmohan Singh[1]		INC
2003		Sharad Pawar		NCP
2004		Sushma Swaraj		BJP
2005		P. Chidambaram		INC
2006		Mani Shankar Aiyar		INC
2007		Priyaranjan Das Munshi[2]		INC
2008		Mohan Singh[2]		SP
2009		Murli Manohar Joshi[2]		BJP
2010		Arun Jaitley		BJP
2011		Karan Singh		INC
2012		Sharad Yadav		JD(U)
2013		Najma Heptulla		BJP
2014		Hukmdev Narayan Yadav		BJP
2015		Ghulam Nabi Azad		INC
2016		Dinesh Trivedi		AITC
2017		Bhartruhari Mahtab[3]		BJD

Criticism

It has been observed that the award has been awarded in a pattern to senior leaders of major political parties. Questions have been raised on the need, seriousness and authenticity of the exercise to present the ‘Outstanding Parliamentarian Award’.^[4]