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Pratibha Patil has been the President of India for nearlytwo years while Sonia Gandhi is the President of the rulingCongress as also the Chairperson of the UPA, the alliance thatruns the government.
Besides, it is not only 'Madam Speaker' for the firsttime in the Lok Sabha, but the Lower House also boasts ofhaving a record number of women members this time.
Among the 59 women are the high and mighty of politicslike Mamta Banerjee of Trinamool Congress, whose party with 19members is the second largest in the ruling alliance.
There are several woman ministers in the Union Council,including Ambika Soni, Kumari Selja, D Purandeshwari, KrishnaTirath, Panabaka Lakshmi and Praneet Kaur.
Agatha Sangma (28) is the 'baby' of the cabinet whileMeira Kumar herself was a cabinet minister till last week.
Among the leading lights of the opposition are SushmaSwaraj of BJP as also Sumitra Mahajan. Jaya Prada of SP hasliterally fought her way to the Lok Sabha for the second time.
The first-timers include Shruti Chaudhury, Jyoti Mirdha,Mausam Noor and Anu Tandon (all Congress), Supriya Sule (NCP)and Shatabdi Roy (Trinamool).
