Nepotism gets a good name

One place where the tradition of jobs for the boys (and now girls) still persists is politics

T

his House is quite diverse. The 15th Lok Sabha has a 26-year-old member, who is the youngest, and an 88-year veteran, who is the oldest. It has serious politicians, film stars, cricketers, former bureaucrats, businessmen, sons and daughters, daughters-in-law of senior leaders et al. At 58, it has the highest number of women MPs ever. It has more crorepatis than any previous Lok Sabha. There are scores of them who have dreams of doing their best for their constituencies. Unfortunately, the new House also has the highest number of MPs having criminal records!

What is striking in the just constituted LS is the fine blend of GenNext and the experienced. There are 79 MPs who are below 40 years of age, higher than the last House, and about 225 MPs who are below 50 years. But then, there are 36 MPs who are at least 70 years old.

Want to meet the baby and the oldie of the House? Here they are: Muhammed Sayeed of Congress is the ‘baby’ of the House from Lakshadweep. He is the son of the late P M Sayeed, former deputy speaker of the Lok Sabha, who won 10 times from Lakshadweep and who studied in Karnataka. Sayeed Jr.  has studied law at Pune. “With legacy you have a platform. But I have to prove myself”, he says. It may sound strange, the youngster says he wants to look older. “One should look older in politics”. A practising Muslim, he prays five times a day. Even his cell number has 786, considered lucky by Muslims, as the last three digits.

The oldest member is Ram Sundar Das of the Janata Dal (U). Even at the ripe old age of 88, his energy level is no less than his younger counterparts. A giant killer, he defeated the formidable Ramvilas Paswan at the latter’s stronghold of Hajipur in Bihar.

What about other youngsters, many of whom are women? Well, their enthusiasm is palpable. Their agenda is development. North Malda (West Bengal)’s Mausam Noor (28), who is also an MLA and niece of late MP Ghani Khan Chowdhary, Bhiwani (Haryana)’s Shruti Choudhary (33), Mandsaur (Madhya Pradesh)’s Meenakshi Natarajan and Nagaur (Rajasthan)’s Jyoti Mirdha (both 36), corporate background’s Annu Tandon (Unnao in UP) – all Congress MPs, come from different backgrounds and states but are determined to make a mark in the hall of democracy. And they have an admiration for Rahul Gandhi, the Congress’ heir apparent. Says Shruti, daughter-in-law of late Haryana chief minister Bansi Lal and daughter of former parliamentarian Surender Singh and serving Haryana minister Kiran Chowdhary: “Rahul has done a phenomenal job (in building the party)’.

Meenakshi, AICC secretary, part of Rahul’s core team and a biochem post-graduate says, “I advocated equal access to resources and maintained complete transparency. I think that worked”. Rahul’s focus on inducting younger people also saw many winning – and from difficult seats. Manicka Tagore, another giant killer who defeated Vaiko in Tamil Nadu’s Virudhunagar told Deccan Herald: “It was Rahul who handpicked me for the LS seat when no one gave me any chance of victory”.

Women’s reservation Bill proposing 33% reservation for women in Parliament may not have been passed but this House will have maximum number of the fairer sex ever. At 58, this LS has 13 more women MPs than the last House. Interestingly, the women who got elected from reserved category are more at 12.2%, with 10.2% being from general category.

Glam quotient too

There will be glamour attached to this House too. You can see film stars Shatrughan Sinha (who had a forgettable run as health minister), Jayaprada, Vinod Khanna, Vijayashanti, Satabdi Roy, Napoleon or the likes of cricketer-turned politicians Mohd Azharuddin, Navjot Sidhu and Kirti Azad. There is also Shashi Tharoor, former deputy secretary general of United Nations, a former IAS officer P L Punia - former principal secretary to UP Chief Minister Mayawati, who fell out with her and won on a Congress ticket. There is even an ex-Black Cat commando - Kamal Kishore was in Rajiv Gandhi’s elite security force, who made it from Bahraich (UP). Nagaland’s Chief Minister Chang has won by highest margin in this LS - 4.83 lakh.

Now take a look at another curious factor: 24 former CMs contested this LS elections.

Though not many were lucky, father-son CM duo of H D Deve Gowda and H D Kumaraswamy made it. Others who romped home include Mulayam Singh Yadav and son Akhilesh, Sharad Pawar and daughter Supriya Sule, Bhajan Lal, Veerappa Moily, Dharam Singh, Farooq Abdulla (whose son Oman is J&K CM). For the first time, four Gandhis will be seen face to face in the House: Sonia Gandhi and her son Varun will be seated opposite Maneka and her son Varun. Harsimrat Kaur Badal is daughter-in-law of Punjab CM Prakash Singh Badal and wife of the state’s deputy CM. This LS will also go down in history books as the richest, so far.

As per their affidavits, 300 MPs are crorepatis, which is almost a 100% increase over the last LS! Of them, 136 are from the Congress and 58 from the BJP. The richest of them all is N Nageswara Rao of Andhra Pradesh, who won on a TDP ticket from Khammam. He has declared assets worth Rs 173 crore.

Sad, but true

There is a disappointing 15% increase in the number of MPs facing criminal charges in the incoming Lok Sabha, which will also have at least 225 MPs who are less than 50 years old. According to National Election Watch, 150 of the newly elected MPs have criminal cases pending against them as against 128 in the last House.

Still, the new LS presents a fascinating picture of the diversity that is India. One only hopes the people’s representatives will have done their best to their constituents when they complete their five-year term.