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"Nations are born in the hearts of poets, they prosper and die in the hands of politicians." - Muhammad Iqbal
Covering the path of a noble history, India has been led by many influential politicians who drove the country and its people and have been an inspiration for everyone. We have been learning about the historical backdrop of these personalities since our childhood. But even after so much of popularity, there are numerous pictures of our politicians that we have rarely seen. And that is what I have for you all today. These photographs I'm about to show you were captured during their young days when they looked no way closer to how they look today.
So here are some vintage pictures of Indian lawmakers that will take you back in time. C'mon, have a look.
1. Lalu Prasad Yadav
Lalu Yadav, an Indian politician from the state of Bihar was Chief Minister of Bihar from 1990 to 1997. He was then the Minister of Railways from 2004 to 2009 with United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. Currently, he is the President of the Rashtriya Janata Dal political party. He married Rabri Devi and has fathered nine children; two sons and seven daughters.
2. Lal Krishna Advani
The 7th Deputy Prime Minister of India from 2002 to 2004, Lal Krishna Advani served as Minister of Home Affairs in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government from 1998 to 2004. He is one of the co-founders and senior leader of Bharatiya Janata Party. In 2015, he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second-highest civilian honor.
3. Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) became the Prime Minister of India twice, first for 13 days in 1996 and then from 1998 to 2004. At his age of 92, Vajpayee is currently the oldest living former India Prime Minister.
4. Sonia Gandhi
Italian-born Indian politician, Sonia Gandhi has served as President of the Indian National Congress party since 1998. She is the widow of former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi who belonged to the Nehru-Gandhi family.
She has served as the Chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance in the Lok Sabha since 2004. In September 2010, on being re-elected for the fourth time, she became the longest-serving president in the 125-year history of the Congress party. Her foreign birth has been a subject of much debate and controversy.
5. Smriti Zubin Irani
An Indian politician, a former model, television actress and producer, Smriti Zubin Irani is a Member of Parliament, being elected to the Rajya Sabha from the state of Gujarat. She is the current Information and Broadcasting and Textiles Minister in the Government of India.
6. Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh, Indian economist and politician who served as the Prime Minister of India from 2004 to 2014. The first Sikh in office, Singh was also the first prime minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to be re-elected after completing a full five-year term. The Independent described Singh as "one of the world's most revered leaders" and "a man of uncommon decency and grace."
7. Narendra Modi
The 14th and current Prime Minister of India, Narendra Damodardas Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament for Varanasi. As prime minister, Modi has received consistently high approval ratings; at the end of his first year in office, he received an overall approval rating of 87% in a Pew Research poll, with 68% of people rating him "very favorably" and 93% approving of his government.
8. Arvind Kejriwal
Arvind Kejriwal is the Chief Minister of Delhi since February 2015. In 2012, he launched Aam Aadmi Party, and the party won in the 2013 Delhi Legislative Assembly election. Following the election, he took office as the Chief Minister of Delhi on 28 December 2013. He resigned 49 days later, on 14 February 2014 because of his minority government's inability to pass his proposed anti-corruption legislation due to a lack of support from other political parties.
9. Sushma Swaraj
Sushma Swaraj is the former Supreme Court lawyer and the current Minister of External Affairs of India. A leader of Bharatiya Janata Party, Swaraj is the second woman to be India's Minister of External Affairs, after Indira Gandhi.
She has been elected seven times as a Member of Parliament and three times as a Member of the Legislative Assembly. At the age of 25 in 1977, she became the youngest cabinet minister of Haryana. Swaraj was opinionated as India's 'best-loved politician' by the US daily Wall Street Journal.
10. Arun Jaitley
Arun Jaitley is the current Finance Minister and Minister of Corporate Affairs in the BJP Government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ministry.
Jaitley previously held the cabinet portfolios of Commerce and Industry and Law and Justice in the Vajpayee government (1998–2004) and serving as the Minister of Defence in the Narendra Modi government as an additional charge. He is a Senior Advocate of the Delhi High Court.
11. Mayawati Prabhu Das
Mayawati Prabhu Das commonly known as Mayawati is an Indian politician who served four times as the 17th Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.
She is the national president of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Her party focuses on a program of social change to improve the lives of the weakest levels of Indian society; the Bahujans or Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, and religious minorities.
12. Rahul Gandhi
Rahul Gandhi is currently serving as Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha from Amethi, Uttar Pradesh. He also currently serves as Member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs.
He serves as the Vice-President of the Indian National Congress party, the Chairperson of the Indian Youth Congress and the National Students Union of India. He is the second-highest-ranked member of the Congress Working Committee. He also serves as Trustee of Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust.
13. Mamata Banerjee
Mamata Banerjee aka Didi is a poet, painter, miscellanist and an Indian politician who has been the 8th Chief Minister of West Bengal since 2011. She is the first woman to hold the office. She founded the party All India Trinamool Congress (AITMC or TMC) in 1997 after separating from the Indian National Congress. She also became its chairperson.
14. Indira Gandhi
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi, an Indianstateswoman and central figure of the Indian National Congress, was the first and, to date, the only female Prime Minister of India. Gandhi belonged to the Nehru–Gandhi family and was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Indian prime minister.
Despite her surname Gandhi, she is not related to the family of Mahatma Gandhi. According to the sources, she served as Prime Minister from January 1966 to March 1977 and again from January 1980 until her assassination in October 1984, making her the second longest-serving Indian prime minister after her father.
15. Maneka Gandhi
Maneka Sanjay Gandhi is the Indian Union Cabinet Minister for Women & Child Development in the Government of PM Narendra Modi. She is also an animal rights activist, environmentalist, and widow of the Indian politician Sanjay Gandhi.
She has been a minister in four governments and has authored a number of books in the areas of etymology, law and animal welfare.
16. Muthuvel Karunanidhi
The leader of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and 3rd Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Muthuvel Karunanidhi became Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for the first time in 1969. On 13 May 2006, he became the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for the fifth time. He is also known for his writing works in the Tamil film industry.
17. Pranab Kumar Mukherjee
Pranab Kumar Mukherjee served as the 13th President of India from 2012 until 2017. In a political career of six decades, Mukherjee was a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and occupied several ministerial responsibilities in the Government of India.
Before his election as President, Mukherjee was Union Finance Minister from 2009 to 2012 and the Congress party's top specialist.
18. Shashi Tharoor
Shashi Tharoor is an Indian politician and a former diplomat who is currently serving as Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala since 2009. He also currently serves as Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs and All India Professionals Congress of the Indian National Congress.
19. Mulayam Singh Yadav
Mulayam Singh Yadav from Uttar Pradesh, headed the Samajwadi Party. He served for three non-consecutive terms as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. He also served as the Minister of Defence of India from 1996 to 1998 in the United Front government. He currently serves in the Lok Sabha as the member for Azamgarh.
Yadav has married twice. His first wife Malti Devi died in May 2003. Their son, Akhilesh Yadav, was Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh from 2012 to 2017. Mr Mulayam had a relationship with Sadhana Gupta while still married to Malti Devi until February 2007, when the relationship was admitted in India's Supreme Court.
20. Subramanian Swamy
Subramanian Swamy serves as a Member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha. He was the President of the Janata Party until it merged with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Swamy has served as a member of the Planning Commission of India and was a Cabinet Minister in the Chandra Shekhar government.
Swamy simplified trade procedures and formulated a new export strategy which became the forerunner of trade reform.
In 1994, Swamy was appointed as Chairman of the Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade by former Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao.
That's all folks.
I hope you liked the story.