The Doughty Dozen

Tarkeshwari Sinha spared neither the Opposition nor the government. “My experience of parliamentary life is still in its infancy; but even I felt that the chief and only pretended merits of the speeches were that they contain no extraordinary matter,” said the Congress MP, taking on the Opposition in one of her fiery speeches in Lok Sabha in March 1953 during a debate on foreign affairs. After her diatribe against the Opposition for criticising Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s foreign policy, Sinha said she disagreed with him on two points—India’s “kind” attitude towards Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Pakistan. She was 26 when she was elected from Patna East to the First Lok Sabha in 1952.

In 1971, an article in the New York Times quoted one of Sinha’s political friends as saying that men who had dared to engage in verbal duels with her had returned “bruised and shaken.” She went on to win the next three consecutive Lok Sabha elections and became the first woman deputy finance minister in the Nehru Cabinet in 1958. In the First Lok Sabha, around 30 per cent of the 22 women in the House were below 40.

Since then to the 18th Lok Sabha, the number of women has gone up with leaden steps to 74, but the number of women under 40 is around 16 per cent. While several of them carry forward familial political legacies, cutting across party lines, a few fought their way up, breaking glass ceilings. Who are these 12 MPs?

Shambhavi Choudhary, 26, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas)

About six months after winning from Samastipur, Bihar, the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) MP pledged to donate her entire five-year term’s salary to girls’ education in her constituency. An initiative Padhega Samastipur tho Badhega Samastipur (If Samastipur gets educated, Samastipur will progress), she said, was aimed at girls who dropped out of school because of financial constraints. A post-graduate in sociology from the Delhi School of Economics, ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Shambhavi Choudhary had joined the party led by Chirag Paswan, LJP founder Ram Vilas Paswan’s son and an ally of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The daughter of Ashok Kumar Choudhary, who is a Janta Dal (United) minister in the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar, she defeated Congress’ Sunny Hazari, also the son of a JD(U) minister, Maheshwar Hazari, by 1,87,251 votes in Samastipur, a reserved SC seat. Choudhary is married to Saayan Kunal, the son of former IPS officer Kishore Kunal of the 1972 batch from the Gujarat cadre who had served under the VP Singh government and had been appointed officer on special duty to assist the Ayodhya Cell set up to resolve the dispute.

Priya Saroj, 26, Samajwadi Party

A law graduate, Priya Saroj was attending online classes for a judiciary examination when she found out that she was getting a ticket to fight the General Election. Elected to Lok Sabha at 25 from Machhlishahr in Uttar Pradesh (UP), the Samajwadi Party (SP) MP is the youngest woman member in the House. Priya’s father, Tufani Saroj is a three time MP from UP, including once from Machhlishahr, a Scheduled Caste (SC) reserved constituency. He is now an MLA from Kerakat, an Assembly segment of Machhlishahr. He had lost the Lok Sabha seat to BJP in 2014 and 2019. This time, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav decided to field Priya. The experiment paid off. She won back the seat for SP, defeating BJP’s BP Saroj by 35,850 votes. Priya has recorded a 96 per cent attendance in the House and participated in five debates, including one on the new education policy in which she focused on the youth, saying incidents like NEET paper leaks called for rectification of the education system. As a young woman elected from a reserved seat, her priorities seem to be cut out—youth, women, and Dalits. Recently, she has been in the news for her reported engagement to cricketer Rinku Singh, but her father has dismissed the reports saying talks were on between the two families.

Sanjna Jatav, 26, Congress

 

Fighting in the heat and dust of Rajasthan, she has risen through the ranks. It began with the Alwar Zilla Parishad in 2021. Two years later, Congress gave her a ticket to fight the Kathumar SC reserved seat in the Rajasthan Assembly elections. But she lost to BJP’s Ramesh Khinchi, a three-time MLA from the seat, by a margin of just 409 votes. Less than six months later, she was fighting a bigger battle—the Bharatpur Lok Sabha seat, also an SC reserved constituency—having picked up the threads from the Kathumar experience. It was during her participation in Congress’ Ladki Hun Lad Sakti Hun (I am a girl and I can fight) campaign that she came across party leader Priyanka Gandhi. When Sanjna met Rahul Gandhi in Lok Sabha for the first time, she was surprised that he was aware of her Kathumar fight. She defeated BJP’s Ramswaroop Koli by 52,983 votes in Bharatpur, a victory she celebrated dancing to a Rajasthani folk song. Married at 18 to a constable, Kaptan Singh, who is now her personal security officer, she completed her graduation after marriage and did her LLB from Lords University in Alwar. Sanjna hopes to raise issues concerning her constituents, such as the water crisis. Born in Bhusawar in Bharatpur district into a humble background, her exposure to politics began with her father contesting to become an upsarpanch, the deputy head of a gram panchayat.

Priyanka Jarkiholi, 27 Congress

She had never imagined that her political career would begin with contesting the Lok Sabha elections. The daughter of state PWD Minister Satish Jarkiholi in Karnataka’s Congress government, politics, however, runs in her blood. The greenhorn defeated BJP warhorse and sitting MP Annasaheb Shankar Jolle in Chikkodi by 90,834 votes, becoming the first woman from the tribal community to win a non-reserved seat. Jolle, who is from the politically influential Lingayat community, was banking on the section’s support and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity. A post-graduate with an MBA degree from Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belagavi, Priyanka has held directorial positions in commercial ventures. Her profile describes her as a businessperson and she wants to push for employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for the youth. In her first speech in Parliament, during a debate on the National Education Policy, she had begun with quoting Ambedkar—on the progress of a society depending on the progress of education—and spoke of challenges pertaining to quality, accessibility and equity of education.

Iqra Choudhary, 30, Samajwadi Party

A postgraduate in law and international politics who went to SOAS in the UK, she wanted to pursue her PhD. But life had other plans. After returning to India during the Covid-19 pandemic, Iqra Choudhary managed the campaign of her elder brother Nahid Hasan, an SP MLA contesting the Assembly election from UP’s Kairana for the third time while he was in jail charged under sections of the Gangster Act in 2021. Nahid won the 2022 election, defeating BJP’s Mriganka Singh, the daughter of Hukum Singh who had held the seat from 1996 to 2014. By the time Iqra fought the Lok Sabha election, she was a familiar face in Kairana, where politics had been dominated by the feud between the two Muslim Gujjar clans. Granddaughter of Akhtar Hasan and daughter of Munawwar Hasan and Tabassum Hasan, all of whom have been MPs from Kairana, Iqra had her first brush with politics in 2016, fighting the Zilla Parishad elections which she lost. In the Lok Sabha polls, she faced a rival outside the Singh clan—BJP’s Pradeep Choudhary, a three-time MLA to whom her mother lost the 2019 Lok Sabha election from Kairana. Iqra defeated him by 69,116 votes. With 96 per cent attendance, she has participated in 15 debates and raised 39 questions, according to PRS Legislative Research data. In her first speech in the House, Iqra made a plea for rail links between Shamli and Hindu pilgrim centres—Vaishno Devi and Prayagraj. In February, seeking to curb legal action against mosques and dargahs, she approached Supreme Court for effective implementation of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, enacted to preserve the religious character of places of worship as they existed on August 15, 1947.

Gumma Thanuja Rani, 31, YSR Congress Party

While studying medicine at the International University of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek, she never imagined she would be contesting an election for the YSR Congress Party in Araku, Andhra Pradesh. The daughter-in-law of former Araku MLA Chetti Palguna, Thanuja was working as a medical officer in ASR district medical and health office in Paderu. As an MP, she wants to focus on addressing health issues in the tribal region. Interestingly, she is the only one among Andhra Pradesh’s 26 MPs who is not a crorepati, as per records of declared income. While her mother is a head nurse in Paderu, her father G Shyama Sundar Rao retired from BSNL and became a sarpanch, an election for which Thanuja had campaigned. She defeated BJP’s Kothapalli Geetha, who was earlier in YSR Congress, by 50,580 votes. With an 82 per cent attendance, she participated in seven debates and raised 35 questions, according to PRS data. In her first speech in the House during the debate on the President’s Address, Thanuja spoke of the lack of tribal children’s access to good education.

Saayoni Ghosh, 32, Trinamool Congress

With her hair put up in a top knot, she is seen zealously applauding speeches made by Opposition members in the House. The actor-turned-politician from West Bengal has 100 per cent attendance, raised 29 questions and participated in five debates, according to PRS data. Scathing in her attack on the Modi government, the Trinamool Congress MP reels out statistics to make her point. She defeated BJP’s Anirban Ganguly, an author, by a margin of 2,58,201 votes in Jadavpur, a seat Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee herself won at 29 in 1984 when she was in Congress, defeating veteran CPM leader Somnath Chatterjee. Saayoni’s political career took off after former Tripura Governor Tathagata Roy filed a police complaint in 2021 against her for hurting religious sentiments with her Twitter handle in 2015 allegedly showing a shivling in an AIDS awareness advertisement. A month later, she joined Trinamool Congress and soon fought the state Assembly polls from the Asansol South constituency but was defeated by BJP’s Agnimitra Paul. Her political journey, however, continued with her being appointed president of the party’s youth wing, as she gradually transitioned from actor to politician.

Raksha Khadse, 37, BJP

This is the third consecutive time that the BJP leader has won from Raver in Maharashtra, this time defeating Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) candidate Shriram Patil by 2,72,183 votes. Inducted into the Modi government as MoS for youth affairs and sports, she cut her teeth in politics as sarpanch of Kothadi village in Jalgaon district and later in the Jalgaon Zila Parishad. At 26, a computer science graduate, she was one of the youngest to win the Lok Sabha election in 2014, which she fought a year after the death of her husband Nikhil Khadse, the son of veteran politician Eknath Khadse who had won six consecutive Assembly elections from Muktainagar since 1990, representing BJP. A Leva Patel, he had weaned away the community’s vote from Congress. He quit BJP in 2020 and joined NCP but Raksha continued in the party. She was in the spotlight recently over a complaint she filed alleging her daughter was harassed by a group of men at a fair in Jalgaon, sparking a political slugfest between the ruling NDA in Maharashtra and the opposition.

Himadri Singh, 37, BJP

A tribal face in Madhya Pradesh, she had quit Congress and joined BJP in 2019, two years after she married BJP’s youth wing leader Narendra Singh Maravi, whom her mother Rajesh Nandini Singh had defeated in 2009 in the Shahdol Lok Sabha seat. Himadri fought the reserved Scheduled Tribe (ST) seat in 2016 but lost to BJP’s Gyan Singh. After she joined BJP, she won the seat, defeating Congress’ Pramila Singh in 2019 and Phundelal Singh Marko, by over 3.9 lakh votes, in 2024. While Himadri switched sides from Congress to BJP, Pramila Singh had quit BJP to join Congress. Himadri’s family has dominated Congress in elections from Shahdol, with her father winning the seat thrice. A graduate in political science, who describes her profession as agriculture and social work, she is among the six women MPs elected from Madhya Pradesh.

Kangana Ranaut, 38, BJP

When the actor-turned-politician faced allegations of being parachuted in to contest Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi Lok Sabha seat, she narrated the story from Ramayana of the squirrel that threw pebbles into the sea when the Ram Setu was being built. “I may not have been a party worker, but I fought in my own way,” she said. Kangana praised Modi, aligned herself with Hindutva ideology, and took on BJP’s opponents. She defeated Congress’ Vikramaditya Singh, PWD minister in the state and son of Virbhadra Singh, the state’s longest serving chief minister, by 74,755 votes. For Ranaut, who has played roles of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on celluloid, the first encounter with politics was the war of words between her and the ruling Shiv Sena in Maharashtra in 2020 after she had compared Mumbai with Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). She has often triggered controversies, at times forcing BJP to distance itself from her comments. When she spoke in Lok Sabha for the first time, she made a plea for saving the art, craft and music of Himachal Pradesh from going “extinct”. She has recorded a 76 per cent attendance, participated in six debates, and raised 26 questions, as per PRS data.

Pratibha Dhanorkar, 39, Congress

A Congress MLA from Maharashtra’s Warora seat, she defeated BJP’s six-time MLA Sudhir Mungantiwar, the state’s cultural affairs and forests minister, by 2.58 lakh votes, from Vidarbha region’s Chandrapur, known as the city of black gold for its coal. In the 2019 General Election, Pratibha’s husband Suresh Dhanorkar had defeated BJP’s four-time MP Hansraj Ahir who had played a crucial role in exposing the coal scam under the Manmohan Singh government. Dhanorkar was the only Congress candidate to have won from the state in 2019. Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, there was unease within Congress in the constituency owing to a rivalry between Pratibha and former leader of opposition in the Assembly Vijay Wadettiwar. While Pratibha staked a claim to contest from Chandrapur in the wake of her husband’s death in 2023, Wadettiwar was keen on his daughter Shivani, the state Congress’ general secretary, being given the ticket.

Anita Chouhan, 40, BJP

A tribal from the Bhilala community of central India, she took her oath wearing its traditional attire and silver jewellery. The second woman to make it to Lok Sabha from Ratlam, a reserved ST seat in Madhya Pradesh’s Malwa region, BJP’s Anita Chouhan defeated septuagenarian Congress veteran Kantilal Bhuria, a Bhil tribal who had won the seat five times, by 2,07,232 votes. The wife of BJP leader Nagar Singh Chouhan, a four-time MLA from the state’s Alirajpur constituency, also a reserved ST seat, Anita’s candidature drew charges of nepotism from her rivals. Anita is a post-graduate in law from the Indore University of Law although in her affidavit her profession is listed as agriculture. She banked on Modi’s policies to win the election.

Anita ChouhanGumma Thanuja RaniHimadri SinghIqra ChoudharyKangana RanautParliamentPratibha DhanorkarPriyanka JarkiholiRaksha KhadseSaayoni GhoshSanjna JatavShambhavi Choudharywomen issue 2025Women MPs