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Rediff.com  » News » Who's who in the Congress's infamous 25

Who's who in the Congress's infamous 25

Last updated on: August 04, 2015 17:50 IST
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Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan came down heavily on Congress leaders for "persistently and willfully obstructing the House" and suspended them for 5 days.

The members who have been punished include the President's son, ex-chief ministers’ sons and an ex-CM’s grandson.

Rediff.com brings you the complete list.

Gaurav Gogoi

Son of Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, the young first-time MP from Kaliabor is considered among Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi’s storm-troopers and is among the party’s aggressive MPs on the floor of the Lower House.

His Twitter handle says this about him: Member of Parliament, Kaliabor, Assam. Entrepreneur and runner. RTs are not my personal opinion.

The 32-year-old MP has a master’s in public administration from New York University, prior to which he had done his BTech in electrical engineering from India. In his maiden election he had declared assets worth Rs 54 lakh and liabilities worth Rs 10 lakh.

Gaurav got married to Elizabeth Claire, a British citizen, a few months before the 2014 elections, and she was part of his election campaign.

Abhijit Mukherjee

Better known as the son of President Pranab Mukherjee, Abhijit represents Jangipur in West Bengal, a seat from where he was first elected in 2012, after his father, then sitting MP, moved into the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

No stranger to controversy, Abhijeet sparked off a row in 2012 when he described the Delhi rape protestors as ‘painted, dented’ women.

Facing a tough electoral battle in 2015, Abhijeet made headlines when he fainted during a rally and had to be hospitalised.

Last year he once again courted controversy when he defended Trinamool Congress MP Tapas Pal’s highly objectionable comments about his political opponents.

B N Chandrappa

First-time MP from Chitradurga, Karnataka, Chandrappa, 59, has an MA and was an agriculturist before joining politics. His wife is a professor in Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute. As per his affidavit filed in 2014, reproduced by myneta.in, he has assets worth Rs 4.8 crore, and liabilities of Rs 1 crore.

According to PRS Legislative, Chandrappa has an attendance record of 98 per cent (national average of 84), has taken part in 18 debates, and asked 76 questions.

Santokh Singh Chaudhary

MP from Jalandhar (SC) constituency, the 69-year-old Chaudhary has a long legislative record, first as an MLA in Punjab assembly staring in 1992. He entered the Lok Sabha for the first time in 2014, and is a member on the committee on welfare on scheduled castes and tribes. He has assets worth Rs 8 crore and liabilities worth Rs 1 crore. His attendance record is 96 per cent, has taken part in 15 debates, and asked 24 questions (national average of 79 questions).

Chaudhary was recently questioned by the Enforcement Directorate in the multi-crore Jagdish Bhola drug racket, involving the Arjuna award winning wrestler-turned-Punjab police DSP who was later suspended.

Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury

Choudhury, MP from Malda South, is the younger brother of ABA Gani Khan Choudhury, the former strongman of Malda in West Bengal on whose watch the district has remained with the Congress party all along. The other Lok Sabha seat, Malda North, is also with the family, and is represented by Mausam Benazir Noor.

Recently, however, the family suffered a setback when Abu Naser, Gani Khan’s younger brother, left the Congress to join the Trinamool Congress.

A member of the state assembly since 1996, Abu Hasem entered the Lok Sabha in 2006 in a by-election necessitated by the death of his elder brother.

Abu Hasem has a rather lacklustre parliamentary record, with 75 per cent attendance, 0 debates, 0 questions and 0 private member’s bill.

He was among the many politicians from Bengal who have been questioned by the CBI in the mult-crore Saradha scam.

Sushmita Dev

Sushmita, daughter of nine-time former Congress MP and former Union minister Santosh Mohan Dev, represents Silchar in Assam in the Lok Sabha, a seat her father held for seven terms. A lawyer by profession, Sushmita declared assets worth Rs 8 crore and liabilities worth Rs 1 crore in 2014.

An active MP, Sushmita has 94 per cent attendance, taken part in 34 debates (national average 18), and raised 24 questions.

She entered the state assembly in 2011, and the Lok Sabha last year. Among her favourite pastime are golf and cricket.

R Dhruvanarayana

Rangaswamy Dhruvanarayana is a two-term MP from Chamrajanagar, Karnataka, prior to which he had served two terms as a state legislator.

Considered among top performing MPs, Dhruvanarayana has a 92 per cent attendance, taken part in 42 debates, and asked 281 questions.

Ninong Erin

Erin represents Arunachal East in the Lok Sabha, and was a state legislator since 1989 before entering the Lok Sabha for the first time in 2009. A fan of Sufi ghazals, Erin has welcomed the peace pact the government signed with the Naga rebels on Monday.

Three years ago Ninong ran into yoga guru Ramdev who he accused of politicising yoga.

Ninong’s father Daying Erin is highly respected for pioneering the panchayati raj movement and many institutions in the state are named after him. The elder Erin was a nominated member from NEFA (now Arunachal Pradesh), before becoming a deputy minister.

In the current Lok Sabha, Ninong has 73 per cent attendance, participated in 16 debates, and asked 106 questions. He has declared assets worth Rs 8 crore, with no liabilities.

Gutha Sukender Reddy

The MP from Nalgonda in Telangana faced suspension from the Lok Sabha in February 2014 as well, when Speaker Meira Kumar suspended 17 MPs for violent protests in the House when the Telangana bill was introduced (even pepper spray was used in the incident).

Reddy’s brother and chairman of Mother’s Dairy, Gutha Jitender Reddy, joined the Telangana Rashtriya Samithi last year.

An intermediate pass, Reddy is an agriculturist by profession and is currently serving his third term in the Lok Sabha.

Not very active in the Lok Sabha, Reddy has 68 per cent attendance, has taken part in eight debates and raised 70 questions.

Deepender Singh Hooda

Son of former Haryana chief minister Bhoopinder Singh Hooda, Deepender represents Rohtak in Parliament. A BTech and an MBA, Hooda was first elected to the Lok Sabha in October 2005, when he was just 27 years old, and is now a veteran three-term MP. He also has the ears of party vice president Rahul Gandhi.

Among the sports Hooda is interested in are Haryana-style wrestling.

His Twitter descriptor says: ‘Sincerely fighting to make a difference’.

In his 2014 election affidavit, Deepender had declared assets worth Rs 35 crore and liabilities worth Rs 3 crore.

Kodikunnil Suresh

The six-term Lok Sabha member from Mavelikkara reserved constituency in Kerala faced the mortification of having his 2009 election disqualified by the Kerala high court in 2010, before going on to win a reprieve from a higher court.

Despite his long career in politics, Suresh remains a man of modest means, his 2014 election affidavit declaring assets worth Rs 1 crore and liabilities of Rs 34 lakh.

Suresh is a vocal member of Parliament, with 83 per cent attendance, taken part in 45 debates, and raised a whopping 253 questions.

S P Muddhahanumegowda

 

The MP from Tumkur, Karnataka, raised eyebrows earlier this year when he joined some of his parliamentary colleagues in defending tobacco usage, saying that there was no evidence to link smoking with cancer.

He was a two-term state legislator before being elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time last year.

Mullapally Ramachandran

The seven-term MP from Vadakara in Kerala, it is said, was not present in the Lok Sabha on Monday at the time of his suspension.

The former MoS, home, left the UPA government redfaced in 2012 when he told the Lok Sabha that underworld don Dawood Ibrahim ‘has not been located so far, and extradition process will be initiated once he is located’, the embarrassment abating three years when his successor minister, Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary, struck a similar tone.

KH Muniyappa

The seven-term MP from Kolar (reserved) seat in Karnataka holds an honorary doctorate, and has been an MoS twice, in shipping ministry in 2004 and in railways in 2009, before being given independent charge of MSME. He lists his special interest as ‘serving the poor’. His election affidavit lists assets worth Rs 18 crores and liabilities of Rs 2 crore.

B V Nayak

First-time MP from Raichur in Karnataka, Nayak made it to the 16th Lok Sabha by a narrow margin of 1499 votes.

In May this year he lost Rs 2 lakh in cash in baggage theft while flying from Bangalore to Hyderabad, prompting him to question the government about safety on flights. Apart from this, he has also asked 271 other questions in the Lok Sabha.

Vincent H Pala

A two-term MP from Shillong, Meghalaya, the civil engineer had served as MoS in the ministries of water resources, minority affairs in the UPA II government.

In his 2014 election affidavit he had shown assets worth Rs 49 crore, almost double the Rs 25 crore he had declared in 2009.

Pala’s parliamentary attendance is at an impressive 96 per cent, has raised 96 questions, and moved three private member’s bills.

M K Raghavan

The two-term MP from Kozhikode, Kerala, has been rather prolific in the Lok Sabha, having asked 135 questions and moved 10 private member’s bills.

A graduate from Mysore University, Raghavan had declared assets worth Rs 61 lakh in 2014, and liabilities of Rs 15 lakh.

Ranjeet Ranjan

The MP from Supaul, Bihar, is better known by her spouse, the RJD’s Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, who defeated the JD-U president Sharad Yadav from Madhepura. They are the only couple in the 16th Lok Sabha.

This is not the first time the couple have made it to the Lok Sabha together, they had done so in 2004 too.

An intermediate pass, Ranjeet likes to view ‘snow-covered peaks of Himalayas’ and does river rafting, para gliding and snow skating.

She has assets worth Rs 8 crore, with no liabilities.

An active MP, Ranjeet has 92 per cent attendance, taken part in 35 debates and asked 109 questions.

C L Ruala

The lone MP from Mizoram was elected in 2014 following a highly polarised campaign in which the Opposition was even painted as ‘anti-Christ’.

Ruala was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 2009, but prior to that he had spend decades in state politics.

In 2014 he had declared assets worth Rs 2 crore, up from the Rs 53 lakh he had declared five years earlier.

Tamradhwaj Sahu

Sahu was the lone Congress MP to win from Chhattisgarh in 2014, as he fought off a Raman Singh wave to hold on to Durg.

A higher secondary pass, he had been an MLA for four terms before being elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 2014.

Rajeev Satav

MP from Hingoli, Maharashtra, Satav has been chief of the Youth Congress, and an MLA before entering Parliament.

Part of the Rahul Brigade in Parliament, Satav, in contrast to his leader, has asked a whopping 300 questions, taken part in 35 debates and moved two private member’s bills.

Ravneet Singh Bittu

The outspoken two-term MP from Ludhiana was quick to term last week’s terrorist attack Gurdaspur, Punjab, as a sign that the Khalistan movement was reviving in the state. He should be concerned, his grandfather, former chief minister Beant Singh, was assassinated by Khalistan terrorists in 1995.

In the Lok Sabha too he has been equally outspoken, asking 220 questions, taking part in 25 debates and moving one private member’s bill.

Nandi Yellaiah

 

MP from Nagarkurnool in Telangana, Yellaiah is one of the two Congressmen elected from Telangana in 2014 (the other being Gutha Sukender Reddy).

Elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1979, Yellaiah is currently serving his sixth term in the Lower House, and declared Rs 70 lakh in assets in 2014.

K C Venugopal

MP from Alappuzha, Kerala, Venugopal was a three-time MLA before being asked to contest the 2009 Lok Sabha election, which he won and was quickly made an MoS in the power ministry and then in the civil aviation ministry. With his induction, at one time, Alappuzha district had three ministers in the Union Council.

In his 2014 election affidavit Venugopal had shown assets worth Rs 1 crore, up from the Rs 35 lakh he had submitted in his 2009 affidavit.

An active member of the Rahul Brigade in Parliamient, Venugopal has asked 107 questions in the 16th Lok Sabha, and took part in 48 debates.

Thukchom Meinya

A three-term MP from Imphal West in Manipur, Meinya’s election affidavit in 2014 was different from that submitted by other politicians. While affidavits usually see an inflation in assets, Meinya’s age grew by 11 years between 2009 and 2014, reports the Economic Times.

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