take two

The Young MP Myth Busted

Madhavankutty Pillai | 28 Apr, 2011

Are Kanimozhi and Supriya Sule no longer members of that darling group?

Immediately after the last Lok Sabha election, journalists looked at the large number of victorious offsprings of established politicians, and instead of seeing silver spoons, nepotism and dynasties, started drooling about a category called young members of Parliament. They were to be the fresh air wafting across the stench of Delhi. This breed kept being thrust onto the Indian public. During Cabinet formation it was asked why Manmohan Singh didn’t have more young MPs. When he bought in some (giving legitimacy to this imaginative construct), it was asked why there were so few of them. Youth, it was implied, came stamped with efficiency, imagination and integrity. The prominent faces of this bunch were Kanimozhi and Supriya Sule. When any TV anchor wanted to do a show on ‘changing India’, they were the usual suspects.

Today Kanimozhi has a CBI chargesheet against her and Supriya Sule’s name has cropped up on the shareholding of companies that have links with companies in the 2G scam. She is also a shareholder in Lavasa, a magnificent, modern, man-made hill station in Maharashtra whose construction has been stalled for flouting environmental norms. Suddenly, these two women have stopped being young MPs, and are now referred to as the daughters of M Karunanidhi and Sharad Pawar.

Television channels however still can’t let go of the young MP and are doing absurd things in the process. Recently, Karan Thapar felt obliged to do a show on what young MPs think of corruption, and, since there were not many left to call, given the topic, had as a panelist Kirti Azad. Azad is 52 and has been an MP for the past 12 years. At his age, he could be a grandfather.

The whole idea of a young MP was nonsense. A Raja himself could have been a young MP but he wasn’t glamorous and suave. Another man ignored at the time was Nilesh Rane, son of Maharashtra revenue minister Narayan Rane. He is cast in the thuggish image of his father and is facing investigation for shooting one of his workers in his office. But at 27 during the time of election, he was as young an MP as could be. There are others from that raggle who retain their cleanliness quotient, but that is only until the next scam touches their old fathers and mothers.