New Delhi. Priyanka Gandhi has taken oath as an MP. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla administered oath to him. With this, another member of the Gandhi family has entered the country’s Parliament. Priyanka Gandhi is the 16th member of the Nehru family to be elected to the Lok Sabha.
This has never happened in the parliamentary history of the country when at least one member of the Gandhi family has not made it to the Lok Sabha. There have also been occasions when 5 or 5 members belonging to the Gandhi-Nehru family came to the Lok Sabha together.
After Rahul Gandhi in the current Lok Sabha, his sister Priyanka also made it to Parliament. Rahul and Priyanka’s mother Sonia Gandhi has been a Lok Sabha MP for a long time. She is currently a Rajya Sabha MP from Rajasthan. This will be the first time that the mother of the Gandhi family and her two sons will be parliamentarians together.
Firstly let’s talk about the first Lok Sabha. The first Lok Sabha elections in the country were held in the year 1951-52. In these elections, a total of 489 MPs were elected from 400 Lok Sabha seats and made it to Parliament. As you know, at that time there were many seats in the Lok Sabha, from where two MPs were elected. In these 1951 Lok Sabha elections, there was one seat from where three MPs were elected and reached the Lok Sabha.
Of these 489 MPs, there were five MPs who were related to the Nehru-Gandhi family. Jawaharlal Nehru himself became Prime Minister of the country by winning the Lok Sabha seat from Allahabad district (east) and Jaunpur district (west). Along with Nehru, the other face who became an MP from this seat was Masuriadin of the Congress.
Firoz Gandhi, son-in-law of Jawaharlal Nehru and husband of Indira Gandhi, won from the Lok Sabha seat from Pratapgarh district (west) and Rae Bareli district (east). Congress’s Brijnath Kuril also won from this seat because it was the seat from where two MPs were elected.
Uma Nehru, who won from Sitapur district and Kheri (western) district, was also associated with this family. In reality, Uma’s husband Shyamlal Nehru was a cousin of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. Shyamlal Nehru’s father, Nandlal Nehru, was the elder brother of Jawaharlal Nehru’s father, Motilal Nehru.
The name of the fourth face of the Nehru family to win in the first Lok Sabha elections was Vijayalakshmi Pandit, Vijayalakshmi Pandit was Nehru’s real sister. Vijayalakshmi had won from the Lucknow central district seat on the Congress ticket.
In 1953, Vijayalakshmi Pandit was elected President of the United Nations General Assembly. Vijayalakshmi was the first woman selected for this position. After this, he resigned his membership in Lok Sabha. After his resignation, by-elections were held in the central district headquarters of Lucknow.
Sheorajwati Nehru, who belonged to the Nehru family, won these by-elections. Sheorajwati was married to Dr. Kishan Lal Nehru. Kishanlal Nehru’s father’s name was Nandlal Nehru. That is, Sheorajwati was the wife of Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru’s cousin. Thus, a total of five people from the Nehru-Gandhi family came to the Lok Sabha in the first Lok Sabha. However, their total number at one time remained only four.
When the second Lok Sabha elections were held in 1957, a total of 494 MPs were elected from 403 Lok Sabha seats. In these elections a new delimitation occurred. Seat names were changed. As far as the Nehru-Gandhi family is concerned, three faces belonging to this family came to the Lok Sabha by winning in these elections. Jawahar Lal Nehru himself won from Phulpur Lok Sabha seat, Uma Nehru won from Sitapur Lok Sabha seat and Feroze Gandhi reached Lok Sabha by winning from Rae Bareli seat. However, Firoz Gandhi could not complete his term. He died on September 8, 1960 at the age of 47.
In the third Lok Sabha elections held in 1962 for 494 seats, Jawaharlal Nehru was the only person from his family to reach Parliament. However, Prime Minister Nehru died on May 27, 1964. Due to his death, the Phulpur Lok Sabha seat fell vacant. When by-elections were held in this seat, his sister Vijayalakshmi Pandit won from here and reached the Lok Sabha and the representation of the Nehru-Gandhi family continued in the Lok Sabha.
Fourth Lok Sabha: The election when a person associated with the Gandhi family defeated the Congress. The country’s fourth Lok Sabha elections were held in the year 1967. These were the first elections in which the Congress was not led by Jawaharlal Nehru. After Nehru’s death, his daughter Indira Gandhi became a Rajya Sabha MP. Indira first contested the Lok Sabha elections in 1967 elections. Indira won this election. Indira was elected from the same Rae Bareli constituency where her husband Firoz Gandhi once won elections. Indira’s aunt Vijayalakshmi Pandit won once again from the Phulpur Lok Sabha seat.
Another member of the Gandhi family also won in these elections. That’s too independent. In fact, in the 1967 elections, the Lucknow seat came out of the hands of the Congress. In this election, independent candidate Anand Narayan Mulla defeated VR Mohan of Congress by 20,972 votes. Before entering politics, Anand Narayan served as a lawyer and judge at the Allahabad High Court. Anand Narayan Mulla’s father was Pandit Jagat Narayan Mulla. Pandit Jagat Narayan Mulla, who belonged to a Kashmiri Pandit family, was a prominent lawyer in Uttar Pradesh, then known as United Province, before independence. He also supported the then British government on many issues. Even in the famous Kakori case, Jagat Narayan Mulla was the lawyer for the British. Sheorajwati, daughter of Jagat Narayan, close to Moti Lal Nehru, was married to Kishan Lal Nehru. The same Sheorajwati who had won the Congress ticket in the by-elections of 1954. The same Sheorajwati’s brother Anand Narayan became the reason for the Congress’ first defeat in the Lucknow seat. Anand Narayan was a famous Urdu poet of that period. He had written many books. Sahitya Akademi awardee Anand Narayan also later went to Rajya Sabha on a Congress ticket.
Indira Gandhi again won from Rae Bareli in the Lok Sabha elections of 1971. At the same time, Sheela Kaul, a member of the Congress and belonging to the Gandhi-Nehru family, reached the Lok Sabha by winning from her Lucknow seat. Also know about Sheela Kaul’s relationship with the Nehru-Gandhi family. Actually, Sheela Kaul’s husband’s name was Kailash Nath Kaul. Kailash Nath Kaul was the real brother of Kamala Nehru. That is, Sheela Kaul was the maternal aunt of Indira Gandhi. This was the same Sheela Kaul who later made it to the Lok Sabha by also winning from Rae Bareli.
After the Emergency, the sixth general election was held in the country in 1977. In this election, Indira Gandhi had to face defeat from Rae Bareli and her eldest son Sanjay Gandhi had to face defeat from Amethi seat in his first election. This was the first time that no member of the Nehru-Gandhi family came to Parliament. However, he couldn’t stay like this for long. In 1978, Indira again won the Lok Sabha by winning from Chikmangular in Karnataka. This was the first time that a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family had reached Parliament after winning elections in any other state outside Uttar Pradesh. Here the relationship with South India and the Nehru-Gandhi family began.
In the 1980 Lok Sabha elections, Sanjay Gandhi again contested from Amethi. This time he won. While his mother Indira Gandhi contested the elections from Rae Bareli and Mendak in Andhra Pradesh and won both seats. The mother and son couple arrived in Parliament for the first time. After the elections, Indira left the seat of Rae Bareli. When the by-elections were held here, Arun Nehru, who belonged to the Nehru family, contested the elections from here and won. Arun Nehru was the grandson of Uma Nehru. The same Uma Nehru who had reached the Lok Sabha winning in 1951 and 1957. Similarly, Indira’s maternal aunt Sheela Kaul once again managed to win in Lucknow. After just one election, the number of members of the Nehru-Gandhi family in the Lok Sabha increased to four.
A few months after the election results, Indira Gandhi’s eldest son, Sanjay Gandhi, died in a plane crash. After Sanjay’s death, his younger brother Rajiv Gandhi won the by-election from the Amethi seat and reached the Lok Sabha.
Four years had passed since this accident and a major crisis befell the Nehru-Gandhi family. The crisis also affected Congress. The party’s senior leader and the country’s Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated on October 31, 1984. The Congress recorded a landslide victory in the elections held after Indira’s assassination. Rajeev Amethi, Arun Nehru Rae Bareli and Sheela Kaul managed to win from the Lucknow Lok Sabha seat.
The Congress had to face defeat in the Lok Sabha elections of 1989. Rajiv’s own people also joined another party. Rajiv Gandhi himself beat Amethi. At the same time, Indira Gandhi’s maternal aunt Sheela Kaul, who was winning from Lucknow, made it to the Lok Sabha after winning from Rae Bareli. Arun Nehru, who won from Rae Bareli in 1980, reached the Lok Sabha by winning from Bilhaur seat of Kanpur district on Janata Dal ticket. At the same time, Rajiv Gandhi’s sister-in-law and Sanjay Gandhi’s wife Maneka Gandhi also reached the Lok Sabha for the first time by defeating Pilibhit on the Janata Dal ticket. Maneka had contested the Amethi elections as an independent against Rajiv Gandhi in 1984. Then not only did he have to face defeat, but even his security deposit was confiscated.
Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated during the 1991 Lok Sabha elections. In that election too, Rajiv was the Congress candidate from the Amethi seat. When the results came after his death, Rajiv had won from the Amethi seat. Due to his death, by-elections had to be held in Amethi. In which his close friend Captain Satish Sharma won. At the same time, Indira’s maternal aunt Sheela Kaul once again reached the Lok Sabha from Rae Bareli.
In the 1996 and 1998 Lok Sabha elections, only one member of the Nehru-Gandhi family reached the Lok Sabha. This member was Maneka Gandhi. In the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, Maneka won from Pilibhit on the Janata Dal ticket. Similarly, in 1998 he won against Pilibhit as an independent candidate.
In the 1999 elections, another side of the Gandhi family entered electoral politics. Rajiv Gandhi’s wife Sonia Gandhi contested and won from the Amethi and Bellary seats in Karnataka. He later left the Bellary seat. At the same time, Maneka Gandhi once again managed to defeat Pilibhit as an independent candidate.
In 2004, Sonia’s son Rahul Gandhi reached the Lok Sabha by defeating Amethi and Sonia Rae Bareli. At the same time, Maneka Gandhi managed to win again from Pilibhit on the BJP ticket. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, another member of the Gandhi family entered the Lok Sabha. That member was Varun Gandhi. In this way, two mother-son pairs from the Gandhi family reached the Lok Sabha for the first time. Rahul and Sonia won on the Congress ticket, while Varun and Maneka won on the BJP ticket. This trend continued in 2014 and 2019 as well.
This figure was reduced from four to one in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, when only Rahul Gandhi made it to the Lok Sabha by winning from Rae Bareli and Wayanad. Now this number has increased again: Priyanka, who won the Wayanad by-election, was sworn in as a Lok Sabha MP. After Jawaharlal Nehru and Vijayalakshmi Pandit, another pair of brothers from the Nehru-Gandhi family will be seen in the House for the first time.
