2019 General Elections Factoids

2019 saw a big mouthed campaign to win and 23^rd May witnessed big win for the charged up BJP- led by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah duo won 302 seats on its own in 17^th Lok Sabha Election,2019 and propels NDA alliance to a final tally of 353 seats in Lower House. The party came up with big victory and showcased other parties and alliances that they have proved to win on the basis f their five year work. The party registered big win in numbers that marked historic victory. Apart from the high voltage election campaigning and high scale celebrations of #Namo again, the 17^th Lok Sabha elections also saw some of the great factoids.

In the newly democratically elected Lok Sabha members, there are 300 first timers out of the 542 MPs, which means that this time the power of democracy has chosen some new faces and have cut down the roots of nepotism and power owners. These 300 MPs will be for the first time sitting in the Lower House and will shoulder the responsibility given to them by people. In politics, age has always been a much debated issue but it has been released that in these 17^th Lok Sabha elections, the average age of an MP is 54 years which highlights the MPs elected this year are not the verge of immediate retirement that ranges from 58 to 60 years in the country. This time the MPs selected below the age of 40 has also risen from 8% in 2014 to 12% in 2019. This highlights that people have shown their trust upon young shoulders as well so that they can be the face for young generation and cater them with better and new schemes.

Women representation in politics has always been a topic of the center table. There have been various measures where women have been motivated to take part in elections. But, 2019 elections really saw distinct promotion in the number of women representation. This time there are 78 women MPs as compared to 62 in 2014.The most optimistic factoid from 2004 to 2019 can be seen as that there is quite noticeable promotion of women representation in Lok Sabha. In 2004 only 9% of women were in Lok Sabha that increased to 11% in 2009, 11.3% in 2014 and 14.4% in 2019. This shows future seems more bright for women representation in Lok Sabha. Also, a woman MP’s average age is 6 years younger than a male MP. Therefore, the woman power in politics seems to be more young and affirmative to new approaches. However, this can be easily argued that 14.4 % is not a bigger number as compared to other nations like 24% in USA, 32% in UK, 21% in Bangladesh and one of the highest in Rwanda up to 61%. Undoubtedly, women representation in Lok Sabha in India is quite less in India but this is increasing and future seems to be bright.

One another much debatable issue has always been of the education in politics. It is an alarming concern in politics where there have been times where not even metric pass candidates are given important posts. Some change are being headed onto like in 2014, 23% MPs were there who had studied till 12^th standard which has now gone up to 27% in 2019 Lok Sabha elections. This is a good sign but on the other hand there is yet another fact which shows that no. of graduate MPs have gone down from 75% in 2014 to 72% in 2019.  Around 39% of all the MPs have registered their occupation as ‘political and social work’ whereas 38% have listed agricultural practices to be their occupation and rest 23% as businessman.  Numbers show not so good educational stats but still keep the hopes alive for educational changes in politics.

These were some of the important 17^th Lok Sabha facts that every Indian must know about. Politics is similar like other professions which one can choose to head on but for this, it’s very important to know that apart from party politics, what are the facts that defines our lower assembly so that one can cast vote and elect their representative accordingly. Our country has the biggest democracy and by being a part of it, it’s our moral responsibility to know its facts.