New Delhi: The two largest outfits – the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress – will have 339 MPs in the 543-member Lok Sabha (BJP: 240, Congress: 99). The BJP, which fell 32 seats short of what would have been its third consecutive single-party majority (282 seats in 2014, and 303 in 2019), the Congress increased its tally from 44 seats in 2014 and 52 five years later.
Over the weekend, the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be conducted. Former Chief Ministers, film stars, political activists, and a former High Court judge are among the 280 first-term members of the Lok Sabha.
Also among first-term members from Maharashtra are BJP’s Piyush Goyal, elected from Mumbai North, Congress leader Balwant Wankhede, who defeated BJP’s Navneet Rana in Amravati, BJP’s Anup Dhotre, the son of former Union Minister Sanjay Dhotre, from Akola, and Independent member Vishal Patil from Sangli.
Former Chief Ministers Narayan Rane (Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg), Trivendra Singh Rawat (Haridwar), Manohar Lal (Karnal), Biplab Kumar Deb (Tripura West), Jitan Ram Manjhi (Gaya), Basavraj Bommai (Haveri), Jagdish Shettar (Belgaum), Charanjit Singh Channi (Jalandhar) are among the first-term members of the Lok Sabha.
Suresh Gopi (Thrissur) and Kangana Ranaut (Mandi) are the actors who will enter the Lok Sabha for the first time.
Uttar Pradesh, the largest state that sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha, elected 45 first-term members to the Lower House, which include actor Arun Govil, who played Lord Ram on TV, from Meerut, Congress leader Kishori Lal Sharma, who defeated BJP’s Smriti Irani in Amethi, and Dalit rights activist Chandrashekhar Azad of the Azad Samaj Party from Nagina.
Women Participation
According to the Election Commission data, 30 women candidates from the BJP emerged victorious, while the Congress has 14, TMC has 11, Samajwadi Party has four, DMK has three, and JDU and LJP(R) have two each. A total of 797 women candidates contested the elections, with the BJP fielding the maximum at 69, followed by the Congress at 41. The 17th Lok Sabha had the highest number of women parliamentarians at 78, constituting over 14 percent of the total strength. In the 16th Lok Sabha, 64 women were its members, while 52 women were elected to the 15th Lok Sabha.
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