The youngest MP is 26

Image: Jyoti Mirdha, Shruti Choudhary and Mausam Noor, three young first-time MPs
Photographs: Domal Kamraju

Ahmad Hamdullah Sayeed of the Congress is the youngest Member of Parliament. He is 26, just a year more than the qualifying age for contesting an election in India, 25, and represents the beautiful islands of Lakshwadeep in the Arabian Sea.

The other five youngest MPs are:

Mausam Noor, 27, of the Congress from Malda Uttar in West Bengal;

Agatha Sangma, 28, of the Nationalist Congress Party from Tura in Meghalaya;

Nilesh Rane, 28 of the Congress from Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg in Maharashtra;

Sarika Singh, 29, of the Rashtriya Lok Dal from Hathras in Uttar Pradesh, and

Feroze Varun Gandhi, 29, of the Bharatiya Janata Party from Pilibhit, UP

There are 30 MPs below the age of 35 in this Parliament, another 30 MPs are between the age of 36 and 39.

In all, there are 61 MPs below 39 in the current Parliament of 543 elected members.

The maximum under-35 MPs come from the Congress -- 12, while 4 each from the BJP and Communist Party of India-Marxist.

Uttar Pradesh with 14 has the highest number of young MPs, followed by Maharashtra with 7.

Six under-35 MPs are women.

Text: Archana Masih

The young slayers

Image: P K Biju, the CPI-M's first-time MP from Alathur in Kerala
Photographs: Photo courtesy: P K Biju's official website

Sarika Singh, 29, is a first-time MP from Hathras in western UP. Coming from a family of farmers, the housewife joined the Rashtriya Lok Dal two years ago and is one of the 40 fresh MPs from UP -- which is half of UP's 80 seats in Parliament.

Devji Patel, 32, the BJP MP from Jalore defeated veteran eight-time MP Buta Singh, home minister in Rajiv Gandhi's last Cabinet, and will be among the 17 new faces from Rajasthan.

P K Biju, 34, of the CPI-M is another first-timer from the Alathur seat in Kerala. The first Dalit president of the Student Federation of India, the largest students organisation in India, he is a research scholar in polymer chemistry.

M B Rajesh, 34, the MP from Pallakad in Kerala is another fresh entrant from the CPI-M stable. A former secretary of the Student Federation of India, he holds a masters in economics and a degree in law.

Ashok Tanwar, 33, the Congress MP from Sirsa in Haryana is president of the Youth Congress and a doctoral student at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is married to Avantika Maken, the grand-daughter of former President Shankar Dayal Sharma.

J Shantha, 35, the BJP MP from Bellary, is the lone woman representing Karnataka in Parliament. From the constituency from where Sonia Gandhi won her first election, Shantha, whose brother is a Karnataka minister, defeated the Congress's N Y Hanumanthappa, a former chief justice of Orissa.

Tomorrow: Young MPs from political dynasties shine

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