Changing Face Of The Legislature

More educated professionals, more millionaires, a few more women, younger MPs and a rejig of caste equations. What the changing face of Lok Sabha means for the Indian democracy?

- Ajit Kumar Jha

BENGALI CINEMA STARLETS Nusrat Jahan and Mimi Chakraborty, both elected as Trinamool Congress MPs from West Bengal, proudly posted selfies on May 27, their first day in Parliament. The Bengali Twitterati was enraged and booed them for not having a sense of occasion and for missing the point of sartorial messaging. You must look the part, after all, and actors of all stripes should know better. Nusrat was in white shirt, jeans and sneakers, Mimi in a pant suit, and both wore dark glasses. Fans perhaps expected them in formal Indian attire, maybe a sari or kurta.

Or perhaps the new-look Lok Sabha will wear its transformation on its metaphoric sleeve. So while saffron may be the predominant colour this parliamentary season, the social demographic of our legislature has changed in other ways. A deep dive into data compiled by PRS Legislative Research and the Trivedi Centre for Political Data at Ashoka University reveals several breaks from the past.

A heavily nationalist mandate has placed 353 NDA MPs, 303 from the Bharatiya Janata Party, in the current Lok Sabha, cementing the pronounced rightward shift in Indian politics. But there are other trends in Lok Sabha 2019 that are worth taking a serious note of.

WOMEN IN THE HOUSE