On Day 1 of Parliament, 7 Facts to Know About 17th Lok Sabha

The new Parliament will have no former prime ministers in attendance.

Image of the Parliament used for representational purposes.

(Photo: The Quint)

As the newly-elected 17th Lok Sabha sits for the first Parliament session after the general elections on 17 June, here are some vital facts you ought to know.

1. No Former PMs In Parliament

With Manmohan Singh’s tenure as a Rajya Sabha MP coming to an end on Friday, 14 June, and HD Deve Gowda having lost Lok Sabha elections from Karnataka’s Tumkur, this Parliament session will not see any past prime ministers grace its halls.

According to ANI, Singh will not be present in the Rajya Sabha for the first time since his first election from Assam in 1991.

Similarly, Deve Gowda, who served as the 11th prime minister of India from June 1996 to April 1997, too, will not be seen after he lost to the BJP's GS Basavaraj from Tumkur Lok Sabha constituency by little over 13,000 votes.

2. Prominent Voices Like LK Advani, MM Joshi Missing

In the last three decades of India's electoral history, there were certain strong voices of their party, states and respective constituencies in Lok Sabha but their voices will not be heard in the 17th Lok Sabha.

Prominent among them, who influenced the national politics for decades, are BJP veterans LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Sumitra Mahajan, Hukumdev Narayan Yadav, former Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and his deputy Jyotiraditya Scindia.

The BJP veterans didn't contest 2019 Lok Sabha polls as they were denied tickets due to their age while Kharge and Scindia, who were bitter critics of Modi, tasted defeats in their respective constituencies.

3. Amit Shah’s First Session in the Lok Sabha

The budget Session will be Amit Shah’s first as a member of the Lok Sabha, having previously been a member in the Upper House of the parliament.

This will also be his first session as the Home Minister. Shah was elected to the Lok Sabha after he won the election from Gandhinagar in Gujarat.

4. No Congress MPs in 18 States and UTs

Should one drive from Jammu and Kashmir to Tamil Nadu, one is unlikely to find a Congress MP in half-a-dozen states. The party has scored a nil in 18 states and union territories in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Among the big states, there are zero Congress MPs in Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Odisha. The smaller states which will not send a single Congress MP are: Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi and Uttarakhand.

The party has failed to secure representation from Andaman and Nicobar, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Lakshadweep, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura as well.

5. No Leader of Opposition, Once Again

In what appears to be a repeat of 2014, the Lok Sabha will have no Leader of Opposition this time as well, with Congress bagging merely 52 seats, and thus falling short of the required 55-mark.

However, it is not unusual to not have a Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, with the post having come into existence only in 1969. According to an India Today report, the fifth, seventh and eighth Lok Sabha did not have a Leader of Opposition either.

6. Highest Number of Women Representatives

The 17th Lok Sabha also boasts the highest number of women MPs to have been ever elected at 14.3 percent. Of the 78 women MPs, 46 MPs are first-timers in the Lok Sabha.

This is significantly higher than 2014, when 62 women were elected as representatives to the Lok Sabha.

However, only six women MPs have been inducted as ministers in the government, with three of them making it to the Union Cabinet — Nirmala Sitharaman, Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Smriti Irani.

7. Only 39% Are ‘Full-Time Politicians’

According to an India Today report, only 39 percent of the elected MPs have listed politics or social service as their profession.

Meanwhile, about 24 percent of the MPs are businessmen/businesswomen, while almost 38 percent of the Lok Sabha MPs are farmers, the report added.