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March 2012

Their birth right! (right or wrong?) judge for yourself!

By Tarunkumar Singhal, Raman Jokhakar, Chartered Accountants
Reading Time 1 mins
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Patrick French’s recent book, India: A Portrait, offered this startling revelation about the Indian Parliament: “Every MP in the Lok Sabha under the age of 30 had in effect inherited a seat, and more than two-thirds of the 66 MPs aged 40 or under were HMPS (Hereditary Members of Parliament). In addition, this new wave of Indian lawmakers would have a decade’s advantage in politics over their peers, since the average MP who had benefited from family politics was almost 10 years younger than those who had arrived with ‘No Significant Family Background’. In the Congress, the situation was yet more extreme: every Congress MP under the age of 35 was an HMP. If the trend continued, it was possible that most members of the Indian Parliament would be there by heredity alone, and the nation would be back to where it had started before the freedom struggle, with rule by a hereditary monarch and assorted Indian princelings.”

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