300 freshers, highest number of women and more Muslims MPs: A look at 17th Lok Sabha in numbers

The highest-ever number of women have been elected in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Out of 542 MPs who will take oath as members of the lower house in the next few days, 78 are women - with Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal leading at 11 each. A total of 724 women candidates contested from across the country with Congress fielding the maximum women at 54 followed closely by BJP at 53.

With over 14 percent female MPs, the 17th Lok Sabha will have the highest number of women candidates since 1952. In 16th Lok Sabha, 64 women had won, while 52 women were elected to the 15th Lok Sabha. The representation of women MPs in Lok Sabha is slowly improving from 5% in the 1st Lok Sabha to 14 % in the 17th Lok Sabha. 

The number of Muslim MPs in the Lok Sabha has increased to a decade high of 27, up from 23 last time, with a dozen of them winning from Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal even as none of the six Muslim candidates fielded by BJP tasted victory.

Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, which have considerable Muslim population, have six candidates each from the community to the Lok Sabha. Kerala and Jammu & Kashmir have three Muslim MPs each while Assam and Bihar have two each. There is one MP each from the community from Punjab, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Lakshadweep and Telangana.

Among the political parties, Trinamool Congress has five Muslim MPs, followed by four of Congress. There are three Muslim MPs each from Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), National Conference and Indian Union Muslim League (IUML). AIMIM has sent two Muslim MPs while there is one Muslim MP each from Ram Vilas Paswan-led LJP, Sharad Pawar's NCP, CPI(M) and Badruddin Ajmal's party AIUDF, as per latest data from the Election Commission.

300 people have won the election for Lok Sabha for their first–term.  A total of 197 sitting MPs, including 27 women parliamentarians, from the 2014 Lok Sabha polls managed to retain their seats this general election. 45 have been members of earlier Lok Sabhas.

The 17th Lok Sabha has 12% of MPs below the age 40 years.  This is more than that of the 16th Lok Sabha which had 8% of MPs below the age of 40 years. 

A total of 397 MPs were elected from national parties in this Lok Sabha. Of these 303 MPs are from BJP while 52 are from Congress and 22 from TMC. Among the state parties, DMK (23) and YSRCP (22) have won the most seats. 

Out of 542, 394 MPs have at least Graduate level education. In the 17th Lok Sabha, 27% of MPs have studied till 12th class. The 16th Lok Sabha had 20% MPs who had studied till 12th class.  39% of MPs have listed their occupation as political and social work. 38% are engaged in agricultural activities.  23% MPs are businessmen. Only 4% of MPs are lawyers.

Bihar saw about 8.17 lakh voters opting for the None of The Above (NOTA) option - the highest in the country - while exercising their franchise in the 17th Lok Sabha polls. According to the Election Commission's website, the NOTA vote share of Bihar stood at two percent of the total votes polled in the state that has 40 Lok Sabha seats. Gopalganj constituency in Bihar saw 51,660 voters pressing the NOTA button (5.04 percent), the highest in the country. Daman and Diu (1.7 percent), Andhra Pradesh (1.49 percent) and Chhattisgarh (1.44 percent) followed in the list with 1.7 percent, 1.49 percent and 1.44 percent votes, respectively, under NOTA.