Rahul Gandhi

Rahul Gandhi, the former president of the Congress party, has many interests, from cooking to scuba diving to martial arts, Rahul is a man of multiple interests. He reads widely, and his taste is eclectic, ranging from Middle Eastern history to Chinese philosophy. Rahul values his privacy but gets very little of it because of the security detail around him. Even though he is continuously surrounded by people and lives enclosed in a security bubble, he has a good sense of the issues faced by most Indians. Rahul Gandhi is a respectful, personable, and discerning politician, yet can be a staunch critic of the state when required.

Madhukeshwar Desai

Madhukeshwar Desai, the great-grandson of Morarji Desai, a Congress politician and former Prime Minister of India, is the vice president of the youth wing of the BJP. A lawyer by training, he is currently the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration (MCIA), a joint effort between the Government of Maharashtra, the international and domestic arbitration and the business community. Madhukeshwar sees the BJP is the only party in India in which anyone can aspire to rise to the top. He also believes in some of the central tenets of the BJP’s ideology, especially that all Indian citizens are treated equally and that the country should move towards a uniform civil code.

Sachin Pilot

Sachin Pilot, a senior Congress politician, is the son of Rajesh Pilot who was also a Congress Party leader. Sachin has been a two-time MP, a union cabinet minister, an MLA, the state president of the Congress party, and now, the deputy chief minister of Rajasthan. Pilot played a significant role in building the Congress party’s organization in Rajasthan from the ground up. He started from the very bottom, focusing on the panchayat, zila parishad, and even dairy elections, and then working his way to state-level elections. Politics for him is not a profession. It is a way of life. It’s a 24/7 commitment to being with the people and the party.

Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore

Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, an Olympics silver medalist and former army officer who has served in counter-insurgency operations, is an unusual politician. He did not enter politics, either working his way through the BJP’s organization or familial connections. Rathore’s entry into politics was smooth - the BJP was looking for newer and non-political faces in its campaign in 2014. He fit the bill. However, it did take him some time to adjust to the workings of Indian bureaucracy and party organization. As an outsider, he is forever seeking to challenge the system and make it better.

Kalikesh Singh Deo

Kalikesh Singh Deo is a two-time elected member of the Lok Sabha from Odisha. He belongs to the Biju Janata Dal. Of royal lineage, Kalikesh and many of his family members are active in electoral politics in different parties, including the BJP and the Congress. Representing a smaller political party Kalikesh is very aware of the limited influence of a single member of parliament in enacting laws and influencing government policy.

Sushmita Dev

Sushmita Dev’s family has a long history of public service. Her grandfather was a freedom fighter and minister in the Assam government, her mother a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in the Assam assembly. Her father was a cabinet minister and Congress stalwart. She is president of the All India Mahila Congress, the Congress party’s women’s wing, Sushmita is acutely aware of the challenges that women face, arguing that a woman’s journey in politics is more difficult than that of a man at every step of the way. Yet, she rejects a lot of measures aimed at women empowerment as pure ‘tokenism’.

Supriya Sule

Supriya Sule, MP from Baramati and a senior leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), hails from Maharashtra’s most prominent political families. Her father Sharad Pawar, the NCP president, is one of the most senior national politicians in India. Supriya, raised by a Christian mother and a Hindu father, celebrates Christmas and Diwali at home with equal fervour. These shared religious traditions probably inform her secular ideology—she is comfortable with pluralism in faith. She is always on the move— travelling to her constituency and addressing voter’s concerns. Supriya has a confident outlook, a legacy of her modern, urban Mumbaikar identity.

Omar Abdullah

Omar Abdullah hails from arguably Kashmir’s most prominent political family. The Abdullahs have been at the forefront of Kashmir politics ever since Maharaja Hari Singh signed the accession of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir to India in October 1947. Omar Abdullah’s political career has seen many highs and lows. He was the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir at the age of 38, he served as a minister in the BJP led government in New Delhi, and in 2019–20 he spent almost eight months in detention in Kashmir. As a Kashmiri politician from the valley, Omar has learned to walk multiple tightropes, including a Kashmiri and Indian identity.

Devendra Fadnavis

Devendra Fadnavis, of the Bharatiya Janata Party, became the second-youngest chief minister of Maharashtra in 2014 at the age of 44. Belying expectations, he lasted a full five-year term in office governing the state renowned for its factional politics. His administrative skills were widely appreciated. He began his political career with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the BJP, and gradually worked his way up the political ladder. Fadnavis has a long association with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), where his father served as a pracharak. He attributes his poise and temperament to his upbringing in the RSS.

Asaduddin Owaisi

Asaduddin Owaisi is the president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM), a Hyderabad-based political party, which represents Muslim interests. Even though AIMIM is a small political party, Asaduddin is perhaps India’s most recognizable Muslim politician. As a scholar of India’s constitution and an avowed constitutionalist, Asaduddin has remarkable clarity of thought on legal and political issues. He also presents nuanced advocacy of secular Muslim interests focusing his energy on education, employment, and economic welfare for Muslims—which need more attention than the community’s religious practices. Asaduddin also possesses a defiant, truculent approach when addressing poor legal thinking, especially by a government in power.