Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Raghav Chadha, urged that the minimum age for contesting elections in India be reduced from 25 years to 21 years. This happened today, Wednesday, August 1.

In his speech the Member, National Executive and National Spokesperson, Aam Aadmi Party, stated a few statistics. He said that India happens to be one of the youngest countries in the world as 65% of our population is less than 35 years old and 50% of our population is less than 25 years old.

"When the first Lok Sabha was elected after Independence, 26% of members were less than 40 years old and when our 17th Lok Sabha was elected two months ago, only 12% of members were less than 40 years old," he said.

The MP, who is also a Chartered Accountant (CA), stated that currently, we are a young country with old politicians but we must aim to become a young country with young politicians.

"I have a suggestion for the Government of India, that the minimum age for contesting elections should be reduced from 25 years to 21 years," he said.

He also mentioned that we need to incentivise the youth to get into mainstream politics.