17th Lok Sabha

The 17th Lok Sabha was formed by the members elected in the 2019 Indian general election. Elections, all across India, were conducted in seven phases from 11 April 2019 to 19 May 2019 by the Election Commission of India. Counting started officially on the morning of 23 May 2019 and the results were declared on the same day.
Om Birla was elected as the Speaker of the House. As no party had 10% of the seats to secure the position of Leader of Opposition, there was no Leader of the Opposition. However, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, which was the second largest party during the 17th Lok Sabha.
The 17th Lok Sabha had the most women representatives, at 14 percent. 267 members were first-time MPs. 233 members (43 percent) have had criminal charges against them. 475 members had their declared assets to be more than ₹1 crore (US$120,000); average assets were ₹20.9 crore (US$2.4 million). Around 39 percent of members were professionally noted to be politicians or involved in social work.
The 17th Lok Sabha has the highest ever number of women politicians with a total of 78 which is nearly 14%. The earlier Lok Sabha had 62 women MPs. The average age of 17th Lok Sabha is noted to be 54 years and 12% of MPs are below the age of 40. Chandrani Murmu of BJD from Keonjhar constituency became the youngest member at the age of 25 years, 11 months and nine days and Shafiqur Rahman Barq of SP from Sambhal constituency became the oldest member at the age of 89. Education-wise, 43% MPs have graduate-level education, 25% are post-graduates and 4% of members have doctorates in various subjects. Of the total strength, 300 members have been elected as member for the first time and 197 members have been elected second time consecutively i.e. they were a member in the 16th Lok Sabha as well. BJP members Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur constituency and Santosh Gangwar from Bareilly constituency has been elected to Lok Sabha for the eighth time. Religion-wise, 90.4% members are Hindus and 5.2% are Muslims, with the rest, nearly 4%, being Sikhs, Christians and other minorities.
According to the NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), 233 members (i.e. 43%) have criminal charges against them. Of these, nearly 29% of the cases are rape, murder, attempted murder, or crime against women. Congress MP Dean Kuriakose, of the Idukki constituency in Kerala, has 204 criminal cases.
Financially, the number of members who are crorepati (i.e. with declared assets more than ₹1 crore (US$120,000)) are 475. Members with more than ₹5 crore (US$580,000) assets are 266. The average assets of the whole Lok Sabha was ₹20.9 crore (US$2.4 million) and Nakul Nath of Congress from Chhindwara constituency has the highest declared assets of nearly ₹660 crore (US$77 million). Nath is followed by H. Vasanthakumar from Kanyakumari constituency, with ₹417 crore (US$49 million) and D. K. Suresh from Bangalore Rural constituency with ₹338 crore (US$39 million); both being of Congress party.
Professionally, around 39% noted to be politicians or involved in social work. This is followed by 38% of members declaring as agriculturists and 23% as businessmen.
As of January 2024, during the tenure of the 17th Lok Sabha, only 16% of bills were referred to Parliamentary committees for examination and half of the bills passed so far were discussed only for less than two hours each. Whereas, the average annual sitting days reduced to only 55 in the 17th Lok Sabha according to a statistical study by the non-profit PRS Legislative Research.
On 13 December 2023, two protestors breached the parliament and entered the Lok Sabha. The parliament security breach was organised by six protestors where two of the accused Sagar Sharma and D Manoranjan, jumped into the chamber from the visitor's gallery, and opened a yellow smoke canister, in an attempt to reach the Speaker's Chair. While outside the parliament, two others, Neelam Devi and Amol Shinde opened aerosol canister releasing a color smoke.
The sixth individual, Vishal Sharma, was caught meters away from the parliament after filming and uploading the video of the protest outside Parliament to the social media platforms. The leader of the protestors was Lalit Jha who is affiliated with the Samyabadi Subhas Sabha, a non-governmental organisation in West Bengal, and calls himself teacher on his Instagram profile. The Delhi police told the court that it was well planned attack on the parliament and all the nabbed accused could be affiliated with terrorist organisations.
Day after the security breach, MP Derek O'Brien of the Rajya Sabha and 13 MPs of Lok Sabha from the Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam parties, were suspended till the remainder of the session for demanding a discussion on the breach. A week later, 33 MPs from Lok Sabha and 46 members from Rajya Sabha were suspended taking the total number of MPs suspended in this session to 92. Furthermore, 49 more members of Parliament (MPs) of the INDIA bloc of parties were suspended on 19 December 2023 for disrupting proceedings which took the total number of such suspensions in the two Houses to 141.