The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi hawk “antigens” against dynastic rule and political dynasties. The BJP, while it opposes “family rule,” has embraced rogue members of the ruling dynasties of prominent opposition parties to compromise the integrity of those parties.
The BJP was earlier pleased to have in its fold Maneka Gandhi and Varun Gandhi in a bid to break the Nehru–Gandhis. Maneka Gandhi snared ministerial posts, while Varun Gandhi made impressive interventions sans impression. Modi, however, has not found this young Gandhi a talent fit for a ministerial posting. Today, Varun is rebelling against the “Modi wave.” To outside observers, the BJP appears dissatisfied that it does not have “political dynasties” akin to the Congress or the “Yadavs” of the Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal. Minus a dynasty to hang as mascot at its headquarters, the BJP is lost in the mela.
Besides the Mulayam Singh Yadav family in the Samajwadi Party, which looks like it will hold sway, there is the Lalu Yadav dynasty in Bihar. The Soren family is an emerging political dynasty in Jharkhand. There is the fledgling “Banerjee dynasty” in West Bengal and an “on now, off now” dynasty in Assam too. The Biju Janata Dal has a dynasty baked into its title; ditto the YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh. There is also the dynasty which controls the puppet strings in Telangana. If Chandrababu Naidu failed to establish dynastic rule, it was only because he was too fixated on his own political trajectory. Naidu himself played fire with the NT Rama Rao dynasty.
Meanwhile, shorn of dynasties of its own, but welcoming to those from outside, the BJP seems to be working to knock the remaining political dynasties of the opposition parties off their pedestals to impress its supporters. If the poaching done from dynastic parties — right, left and centre — is done at the outset of an election or multiple elections, it is all the more fruitful.
It is no surprise then that on the eve of the 2022 five-state assembly elections, the media are talking of payback for the induction of Aparna Yadav – politician, activist and daughter-in-law to Mulayam Singh Yadav – into the BJP as an alleged response to the political “abduction” of Swami Prasad Maurya by the Samajwadi Party.
For the Sangh Parivaar, political dynasties are an anathema. Many among them are men who have embraced asceticism and rally behind similar politicians, like the mahant-chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, taking pole position. Does India’s future lie solely in the hands of the “sant” and “sanyasi” – those who hold “dharam sansads” – and chip away at the pillars of democracy? In cult versus dynasty, the choice is the citizens to pick and choose. (IPA Service)