NEW DELHI: Instead of taking over his successful family business in India's financial capital Mumbai, Milind Deora, 27, decided to fight it out in the country's 14th parliamentary elections.
His detractors say he is brash and naive, and will take another 20 years to understand the complexities of Indian politics with its caste equations and regional variations.
But people like Deora want to turn the stereotype of the aging, corrupt, betel-leaf chewing politician on its head. This is the first election where articulate youth, educated abroad, many with professional degrees, as comfortable addressing large crowds in dusty villages as they are on a Saturday night at a Mumbai pub, are in the fray and demanding to be taken seriously.
After graduating from an elite Mumbai high school, Deora studied business at Boston University. He believes that the growing number of first-time voters - who form a sizeable chunk of the country's more than 670 million-strong electorate - can only identify with young leaders. This is why it is important for young people to enter electoral politics, he says.
"Only five per cent of MPs in the lower house of parliament are under 35. If a young educated person with a global perspective enters politics, it is a good thing," Deora says.
Many like Deora have left the relative comfort of corporate jobs to enter the dust and dirt of Indian politics. Their opponents are grey, wizened and show battle scars of many electoral defeats and victories. But the youth are prepared to defy age-old traditions that say only elders should be in decision-making roles.
The average age of an MP in the last parliament was 55.5 years, making it the "oldest" house in parliamentary history. The youngest house was India's 12th parliament where the average age was 46.4 years.
According to data from the autonomous Election Commission of India, 664 of the total 2,138 candidates are above 55 years. At least 983 candidates are in the 41-55 year group.
Analysts say India's booming population of young people needs young leaders. At 33, Rahul Gandhi, a member of India's first family of politics, makes his political debut as a Congress Party candidate from Amethi in the politically-critical northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
The Congress Party, whose leaders struggled for India's freedom from British rule, is expected to give its worst performance ever. The party that governed India for most of its independent years has been out of power for nearly a decade. But Rahul is confident he can make a difference.
Senior Congress Party leader Ambika Soni said: "Apart from Rahul there is a whole generation of new leaders. With almost 70 per cent of the population being young, they will fire the imagination of the nation's youth."
Sachin Pilot, 26, also of the Congress Party, is featured with equal ease on the society and political pages of newspapers. His father Rajesh Pilot was an influential Congress Party leader who died in a car accident in 2002.
It isn't just young politicians, young voters have also taken a more active role in this election. Engineering students from the western city of Poona started a project to encourage the youth to vote. Their slogan: "It takes only one hour in five years to change the destiny of the nation. Go and cast your vote."
Political science student from Mumbai's St. Xavier's College Renita D'Souza said, "Dirty politics can be wiped out if educated youth come into politics... many of our politicians can't even walk. The ideal picture would be that the vibrant new lot will execute and the seniors will think that's the combination that will help the country." -dpa