'Family' matters in Congress

Rahul Gandhi may have said he does not like it, but 'family' is the real thing in politics, especially of the Congress variety.

A quick glance at the overwhelming number of the newly elected young members of Parliament showed that families do count.

Most of the three dozen odd young and fresh faces of the Congress in the Lok Sabha have a family background of politics which has helped them catapult to the national stage without much effort.

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi had recently described politics as a closed system in which one could get entry only through "dynasty and patronage".

The understanding of Gandhi of the Indian political system has come true in the Lok Sabha elections, particularly for the young MPs.

In his meetings of the youth Congress and the NSUI, Gandhi had insisted that he wanted to change the "closed system" of politics and open it to the talented youngsters and even went ahead with internal elections for the IYC in Punjab and NSUI in Uttarakhand.

But it seems the idea of Gandhi will take time to find roots even in his own party.

The youngest MP of the Lok Sabha, Muhammed Hamdulla Sayeed, 26, is the son of Congress veteran and former Union minister PM Sayeed.

Hamdulla is not alone as most of the MPs from the young brigade of the Congress have a high-profile background in politics.

Sons of three Congress chief ministers find place in the list of victorious party candidates.

Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit's son Sandeep Dikshit, Andhra Pradesh chief minister YSR Reddy's son Jagan Reddy and Haryana chief minister BS Hooda's son Deepinder Hooda have won the elections.

Nitesh Rane, who will be making his political debut in Parliament, is the son of former Maharashtra CM and presently industry minister Narayan Rane.

In fact, only two of the young MPs who have been elected for the first time, do not have any big political legacy to fall back on. They are Meenakshi Natarajan from Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh and Ashok Tanwar, the president of the youth Congress from Sirsa in Haryana.

Three young woman MPs who have won the elections for the first time too have a strong political legacy which helped them immensely in the elections.

Jyoti Mirdha from Rajasthan is the grand daughter of Congress veteran Ram Nivas Mirdha, Mausam Benazir Noor from West Bengal is the grand daughter of former Union minister Ghani Khan Chaudhary and Shruti Chaudhary is the grand daughter of former Haryana CM Bansi Lal and daughter of present Haryana minister Kiran Chaudhary.

Two young MPs from Punjab, both first timers, too have a family background in politics with MP from Anandpur Sahib Ravneet Bittu being the grandson of former CM Beant Singh and Vijay Inder Singla, the MP from Sangrur, the son of former minister Surinder Singla.

Three second time MPs - Jitin Prasad, Sachin Pilot and Milind Deora too hail from powerful political families.

Royal lineage too has helped some of the Congress MPs get prominence in politics.

While Bhanwar Jeetendra Singh is from the royal family of Alwar and has won the parliamentary seat for the first time, Jyotiraditya Scindia won from the family fiefdom of Guna and is the son of former Union minister Madhavrao Scindia.