The beliefthat a politician is still young at 60 may no longer hold good in India, asvoters have elected 226 MPs who are less than 50 years of age for the 15th Lok Sabha.

May be it is the effect of the youth appeal of Rahul Gandhi or the induction ofover 10 crore youth as the first time voters, the election saw as much as 40per cent of the MPs below the age of 50 and the youngest one — Muhammed HSayeed of Congress became eligible for contest just a year ago and is 26-yearold.

The ruling Congress, ridiculed by BJP's star campaigner Narendra Modi as'Budhiya' (old woman), has given 77 MPs who are less than 50 years and in theprocess defeated the BJP that had projected its 81-year-old leader L K Advanias its prime ministerial candidate.

Emerging as the principal opposition party, the BJP, which has secured 116seats to the Lok Sabha, came second in terms of sending in MPs in the age groupof 50.

But one just can't write off a politician only on the grounds of age, as theoldest MP to have been elected to the House is 88-year Ramsunder Das of JD(U),who emerged as a giant killer by defeating Union Cabinet Minister and LJPPresident Ram Vilas Paswan. Paswan had once held the record for winning withthe highest margin of over 4.24 lakh votes.

Of this young brigade of 226 MPs, as many as 82 are below the age of 40. Thereare 147 MPs who belong to the veteran club of 60 plus years. But the presenceof a large number of youngsters has given the hope that the new government ledby 76-year-old Manmohan Singh, who is wishing to convince Rahul to be part ofhis Cabinet, would have a significant number of youth.