After winning the Lok Sabha elections 2024, at least four candidates aged 25 are poised to become the youngest Members of Parliament (MPs).
Shambhavi Choudhary and Sanjana Jatav were fielded by the LJP and Congress, respectively, while Pushpendra Saroj and Priya Saroj contested on the Samajwadi Party's ticket.
Shambhavi Choudhary
Shambhavi Choudhary, a leader from the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), became India's youngest Member of Parliament on June 4 after winning the Lok Sabha elections in Bihar's Samastipur. She defeated Congress' Sunny Hazari by a wide margin of 1,87,251 votes.
Choudhary, at just 25 years old, is a third-generation politician. Her father, Ashok Choudhary, is a prominent JDU leader and one of the most influential ministers in Nitish Kumar's cabinet. He previously switched to the JD(U) from Congress.
Choudhary formally joined the Chirag Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) ahead of the 18th Lok Sabha elections. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Samastipur seat was won by LJP candidate Prince Raj, son of former MP Ram Chandra Paswan, with Congress' Ashok Ram as the runner-up.
Choudhary's grandfather, the late Mahavir Choudhary, was also a Congress member and a state minister during the party's rule in Bihar. Shambhavi has pursued a Master of Arts in Sociology from the prestigious Delhi School of Economics.
She is the daughter of Ashok Choudhary, a prominent JDU leader and influential minister in Nitish Kumar's cabinet, and the daughter-in-law of Acharya Kishore Kunal, a social reformer and former IPS officer. Shambhavi is married to Saayan Kunal.
Sanjana Jatav
Sanjana Jatav, also aged 25, belongs to the Dalit community. She attained her graduation from Maharaja Surajmal Brij University in 2019. Jatav is married to Kaptan Singh, a police constable serving in Rajasthan, and they are blessed with two children.
In her affidavit submitted to the Election Commission, Jatav declared total assets worth Rs 23 lakh and liabilities amounting to Rs 7 lakh.
Despite facing defeat in the 2023 Rajasthan Assembly elections to BJP's Ramesh Khedi by a narrow margin of 409 votes, Jatav showed resilience. She ran a spirited campaign for the Lok Sabha elections and achieved a historic victory for the grand old party, which had failed to win any seats in the 2019 polls.
Pushpendra Saroj
SP candidate Pushpendra Saroj secured his first electoral victory by winning the Kaushambi parliamentary constituency seat, defeating his closest rival and sitting BJP MP Vinod Kumar Sonkar by an impressive margin of 1,03,944 votes. Saroj garnered 5,09,787 votes while Vinod Kumar Sonkar managed just 4,05,843 votes. This victory also catapulted Pushpendra Saroj into the position of the country’s youngest MP.
Expressing his gratitude upon becoming the youngest MP, Saroj emphasised his commitment to amplifying the voices of the people and addressing their concerns in Parliament. He sought the continued support of the electorate in his mission.
Saroj, who completed his graduation from Queen Mary University of London in 2019, achieved more than just personal success with this win. He also avenged his father Indrajeet Saroj’s defeat in the 2019 polls on the same seat.
Indrajeet Saroj, a five-time MLA and former UP cabinet Minister, lost to BJP’s Vinod Kumar Sonkar by 38,722 votes. Interestingly, Pushpendra emerged victorious against Sonkar, who was seeking a third consecutive term from the Kaushambi seat in 2024.
Priya Saroj
Priya Saroj won the Machhlishahr seat by a margin of 35,850 votes, defeating the sitting BJP MP Bholanath. Priya is the daughter of Toofani Saroj, a three-time MP.
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