1967 to 2024: Dimple-Akhilesh and other MP couples of Lok Sabha

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav with wife MP Dimple Yadav at the Parliament House complex on the first day of the first session of the 18th Lok Sabha, in New Delhi, on 24 June, 2024. PTI

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and his wife Dimple Yadav were seen sitting in two back-to-back rows in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday during the election of Bharatiya Janata Party’s Om Birla as the Lok Sabha Speaker. It is for the first time that Akhilesh Yadav and his wife Dimple Yadav have been elected together to the Lok Sabha. They became the first couple from Uttar Pradesh to be Members of Parliament at the same time. However, there have been at least three such couples earlier who became members of the same House in India.

The first MP couple came from Kerala

In the fourth Lok Sabha (1967-1971), AK Gopalan Nambiar, the first Leader of Opposition, and his wife Susheela Gopalan won the parliamentary election together. They were elected as the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) members. Nambiar, known as AKG, was a freedom fighter and a stalwart in Parliament, winning the Palghat seat six consecutive times from 1952 to 1977. Susheela, a trade unionist, won the 1967 Lok Sabha election from Chirayinkil.

Bihar gave two MP couples, who did it twice

Satyendra Narayan Sinha, coming from a royal family in Bihar’s Aurangabad district, and Kishori Sinha were elected to Parliament together twice — in 1980 and 1984. While Sinha won the Aurangabad seat six times, first time in 1952, his wife won the Vaishali seat in 1980 for her maiden Lok Sabha membership.

Sinha kept shifting his political allegiance from the Congress (three times) to the Congress-O (once) and the Janata Party (twice). Kishori Singh won her 1980 and 1984 elections as a Congress nominee.

The other MP-couple from Bihar have been Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav and his wife Ranjeet Ranjan. They, too, were elected as MPs together twice and on tickets of different parties.

In 2004, Ranjeet Ranjan won the Saharsa seat as a Lok Janshakti Party candidate. Pappu Yadav later won the Madhepura by-poll on a Rashtriya Janata Dal ticket. In 2014, Ranjeet Ranjan won as a Congress nominee from Supaul and Pappu Yadav secured the Madhepura seat on the RJD ticket.

Now, Akhilesh and Dimple Yadav are the new MP-couple

As his party, the SP that shocked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh in the recent Lok Sabha election, Akhilesh Yadav and his wife Dimple won their respective seats — Kannauj and Mainpuri. Their party won 37 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats from Uttar Pradesh.

Five from the family won the Lok Sabha election. Akhilesh defeated his rival BJP’s Subrat Pathak by 1.7 lakh votes. His wife Dimple Yadav defeated her BJP's Jaiveer Singh by a margin of 2.21 lakh votes.

Other members from the family to win the Lok Sabha polls this time around are Dharmendra Yadav from Azamgarh, Akshay Yadav from Firozabad and Aditya Yadav Badaun.

Dharmendra and Hema Malini but not in the same House

During the second Manmohan Singh government’s tenure, actor-politician couple Dharmendra and Hema Malini were both Members of Parliament. But they were in separate Houses. Hema Malini was a Rajya Sabha member from 2003 to 2009. Dharmendra won the 2004 Lok Sabha election as a BJP nominee from Bikaner in Rajasthan.