Last November, Narendra Modi addressed a political rally in Chhattisgarh in the run up to the state assembly polls. He mocked dynastic politics in the Congress by claiming that had Raman Singh, the Bharatiya Janata Party chief minister, been a Congress politician, his son would have received a party ticket.
On Saturday, Raman Singh’s son, Abhishek, indeed got a party ticket, and his father did not have to switch parties for that.
Thirty two-year-old Abhishek Singh, BJP’s candidate from Rajnandgaon in Chhattisgarh, is a post-graduate from XLRI Jamshedpur. His political experience is limited to assisting his father, and yet, he edged out the current BJP MP from the constituency, Madhsudhan Yadav. A senior leader who won the 2009 elections with a thumping margin of 119,074 votes, Yadav stood a bright chance of winning again, according to political observers in the state. “But it was difficult to turn down Abhishek’s name since Ramanji has won three elections for the party,” said a BJP leader in Chhattisgarh, on the condition of anonymity.
Another chief minister who wrested three victories for BJP could be similarly rewarded. Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s wife is likely to get a ticket to contest the Madhya Pradesh assembly by-election from Vidisha. In the assembly polls in December, Chouhan had contested and won from two constituencies – Budhni and Vidisha. He retained Budhni and gave up Vidisha. But it appears the constituency might well remain within the family.
You don’t need to win three consecutive elections for the BJP to get a party ticket for a family member. Jayant Sinha, the son of Yashwant Sinha, a senior BJP leader who has served as India’s finance minister, is in the fray from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand. An alumnus of IIT and Harvard Business School, 50-year-old Jayant Sinha has had a long and successful corporate career, but as a disgruntled BJP worker told Hindustan Times, “Degrees from international universities are no criteria to become a popular politician and good administrator.”
Another political scion fielded by the BJP is Anurag Thakur, the son of former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal. Anurag Thakur has been re-nominated from Hamirpur, which he won in 2009.
Dushyant Singh, the son of Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje, is also likely to get re-nominated from Jhalawar constituency. Dushyant Singh won the assembly polls in 2004 and the Lok Sabha polls in 2009.
A BJP spokesperson, who did not wish to be named, said the party could not ignore the "winnability" of political scions. But that does not explain why even those who have lost elections for the party have been rewarded with tickets. Poonam Mahajan, the 33-year-old daughter of late Pramod Mahajan, has been nominated by BJP from Mumbai North-West constituency, even though she lost the 2009 assembly polls by a margin of 24,966 votes.
Reflecting on dynastic politics in India, Nandini Deo, assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Lehigh University, Philadelphia, wrote, “By eating away at democracy within political parties, it has undermined competition between political parties and given us a class of politicians both incompetent and entitled, who view political office as a means to secure ill-gotten wealth and prestige rather than as a form of public service.”
The extent of dynastic politics in India can be gauged by the startling statistic: Two-thirds of current Lok Sabha MPs under the age of 40 have a near relative in politics. And yet, as the writer Patrick French pointed out in this article, the most significant leaders in contemporary India – Mamata Banerjee, Manmohan Singh, Mayawati, Nitish Kumar, J Jayalalithaa, Sharad Pawar and Narendra Modi – are not dynasts. “Although hereditary clout has become normalised in Indian democracy, it may turn out to be the least successful trait in flourishing at the higher reaches of national leadership,” he argued.
But then, not everyone wants to aim for the higher reaches when they can get the low-hanging fruit.
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On Saturday, Raman Singh’s son, Abhishek, indeed got a party ticket, and his father did not have to switch parties for that.
Thirty two-year-old Abhishek Singh, BJP’s candidate from Rajnandgaon in Chhattisgarh, is a post-graduate from XLRI Jamshedpur. His political experience is limited to assisting his father, and yet, he edged out the current BJP MP from the constituency, Madhsudhan Yadav. A senior leader who won the 2009 elections with a thumping margin of 119,074 votes, Yadav stood a bright chance of winning again, according to political observers in the state. “But it was difficult to turn down Abhishek’s name since Ramanji has won three elections for the party,” said a BJP leader in Chhattisgarh, on the condition of anonymity.
Another chief minister who wrested three victories for BJP could be similarly rewarded. Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s wife is likely to get a ticket to contest the Madhya Pradesh assembly by-election from Vidisha. In the assembly polls in December, Chouhan had contested and won from two constituencies – Budhni and Vidisha. He retained Budhni and gave up Vidisha. But it appears the constituency might well remain within the family.
You don’t need to win three consecutive elections for the BJP to get a party ticket for a family member. Jayant Sinha, the son of Yashwant Sinha, a senior BJP leader who has served as India’s finance minister, is in the fray from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand. An alumnus of IIT and Harvard Business School, 50-year-old Jayant Sinha has had a long and successful corporate career, but as a disgruntled BJP worker told Hindustan Times, “Degrees from international universities are no criteria to become a popular politician and good administrator.”
Another political scion fielded by the BJP is Anurag Thakur, the son of former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal. Anurag Thakur has been re-nominated from Hamirpur, which he won in 2009.
Dushyant Singh, the son of Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje, is also likely to get re-nominated from Jhalawar constituency. Dushyant Singh won the assembly polls in 2004 and the Lok Sabha polls in 2009.
A BJP spokesperson, who did not wish to be named, said the party could not ignore the "winnability" of political scions. But that does not explain why even those who have lost elections for the party have been rewarded with tickets. Poonam Mahajan, the 33-year-old daughter of late Pramod Mahajan, has been nominated by BJP from Mumbai North-West constituency, even though she lost the 2009 assembly polls by a margin of 24,966 votes.
Reflecting on dynastic politics in India, Nandini Deo, assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Lehigh University, Philadelphia, wrote, “By eating away at democracy within political parties, it has undermined competition between political parties and given us a class of politicians both incompetent and entitled, who view political office as a means to secure ill-gotten wealth and prestige rather than as a form of public service.”
The extent of dynastic politics in India can be gauged by the startling statistic: Two-thirds of current Lok Sabha MPs under the age of 40 have a near relative in politics. And yet, as the writer Patrick French pointed out in this article, the most significant leaders in contemporary India – Mamata Banerjee, Manmohan Singh, Mayawati, Nitish Kumar, J Jayalalithaa, Sharad Pawar and Narendra Modi – are not dynasts. “Although hereditary clout has become normalised in Indian democracy, it may turn out to be the least successful trait in flourishing at the higher reaches of national leadership,” he argued.
But then, not everyone wants to aim for the higher reaches when they can get the low-hanging fruit.