New Delhi: The electorate has been refusing to return at least half of the sitting members of the Lok Sabha, analysis of election results from 1991 onwards shows.

Thus, voters defeated 214 of the sitting Members of Parliament (MP) in the House of 543 in 1991 while in 1996, 251 sitting members of the Parliament could not make it to the House. The trends continued in 1998 when 260 members lost the elections while in 1999, 241 sitting MPs were not re-elected by the people.

Of the 241 MPs who lost the 1999 polls, 49 (out of 85) were from Uttar Pradesh, 24 (out of total 48) in Maharashtra, 23 (out of 42) in Andhra Pradesh, 23 (out of 40 in Bihar), 16 (out of 28) in Karnataka, 15 (out of 25) in Rajasthan, 16 (out of 39) in Tamil Nadu and 10 (out of 13) in Punjab.

Analysing the results of the elections in a new book in Hindi titled 'Trishanku Loksabhaen, Gathbandhan Sarkaren' (Hung Lok Sabhas and Coalition Governments), the writer Anup Gupt says that there are 74 such constituencies that have not elected a sitting member for the Lok Sabha for the second term. The figure of such constituencies total up to 174 in one analyses of the last three Lok Sabha polls, the writer says.

In contrast to this, there are 40 members of Parliament who were getting elected for the last five Lok Sabha polls. In Uttar Pradesh, there are only two members of Parliament, former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar and Santosh Gangwar who have been getting elected to the house continuously for the last five Lok Sabha polls, the book says.

While the Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker P M Sayeed holds the record of getting elected for the tenth time, the runner up is the CPI (M) veteran Somnath Chatterjee who is being returned by his voters for the ninth time.

In terms of seniority, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is the senior most MP of the 13th Lok sabha. First elected in 1957, Vajpayee, however, was not member of either Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha between 1984-86. Vajpayee was elected to Lok Sabha eight times and to the Rajya Sabha six times.

Congress MP and former speaker, Shivraj Patil is getting elected from his constituency successively from 1980 as also Basudeb Acharya, Sanath Mandal and Hannan Molla and Manikrao Gavit, from their respective seats, the book says.

There are 31 constituencies in the country where there have been contests between new faces. In Akola in Maharashtra, the same two faces, Prakash Ambedkar and Pandurang Phundkar have been contesting against each other during the last five Lok Sabha polls, the author says.

Contrast to this, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and Trinamul Congress leaders Mamata Banerjee and Ajit Panja, Indian Federal Democratic Party (IFDP) leader P C Thomas and P J Kurian have always faced a new opponent in their constituencies.