Anita Katyal | Dynasty no longer bad word for BJP; another Bishnoi wants an RS berth
“Parivarvaad” or dynasty politics is no longer a dirty word for the Bharatiya Janata Party. After running a systematic campaign against the Congress for promoting a host of dynast leaders, the BJP is now doing the same. It was only too happy to induct “Congress dynasts” like Jitin Prasad, R.P.N. Singh, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Milind Deora to the saffron fold. The list of candidates in the recent Haryana Assembly elections and the upcoming polls for Maharashtra and Jharkhand further bears out the fact that the BJP has done away with its proclaimed policy of discouraging “parivarvaad”. The family members who were accommodated by the BJP in Haryana included Gurugram MP Rao Inderjit Singh’s daughter Arti Singh Rao, who was promptly appointed health minister following her maiden victory. It’s the same story with the daughter of former Congress leader Kiran Chaudhary, Shruti, now a first-time minister in Haryana. Her mother was accommodated in the Rajya Sabha earlier. Former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan’s daughter Shrijaya figures in the long list of children, brothers and spouses of leaders who are being fielded by the BJP in the coming elections. And in Jharkhand, the BJP list includes Meera and Geeta Munda, wives of former chief minister and Purnima Das Sahu, daughter-in-law of a former chief minister.
When Priyanka Gandhi Vadra filed her nomination papers for the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat last week, the grand show put up by the Congress was not unexpected. While the party top brass was present in full strength, a host of second-rung leaders and workers also landed up primarily to mark their presence with the party bigwigs. But after this big splash, it has been informally conveyed to party leaders, workers and other wannabes that they refrain from making a beeline for Wayanad during Priyanka’s campaign and only those who have been officially designated by the party for specific duties should travel there. The Congress felt the need to put out this message as it feared that workers would flock to Wayanad merely to be close to the party’s emerging power centre. With important elections coming up in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, the Congress wants to utilise the services of party cadres in these poll-bound states.
It’s been over a week since the new Bharatiya Janata Party government took office in Haryana, but the rumblings in the BJP refuse to die down. Senior BJP leaders are upset that newbies and turncoats have been rewarded with ministerial berths while their rightful claims have been ignored. There is also a race for the Rajya Sabha seat which has fallen vacant after BJP member Krishan Lal Panwar resigned from the Upper House following his election as an MLA. Surprisingly, former Congress leader Kuldeep Bishnoi, who is now with the BJP, is lobbying hard for this seat. His claim, however, is not so strong as his son Bhavya Bishnoi failed to retain the Adampur seat, a family stronghold for the last 56 years. But Bishnoi is learned to be desperate as his estranged brother and Congress leader Chander Mohan Bishnoi, who won his Panchkula seat, is in the running for the post of the leader of the Congress Legislature Party in the Haryana Assembly. The race for this position is on as former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is still hoping to retain this post despite his failure to lead the Congress to a victory in the Assembly polls.
At a time when everyone is celebrating the recent Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir as a revival of democratic traditions in the trouble-torn Union Territory, there is once again informal discussion that statesman-scholar and first governor of the border state Dr Karan Singh be considered for a Bharat Ratna. His admirers maintain that Karan Singh deserves this honour as the former Dogra ruler had voluntarily surrendered his privy purse and opted for electoral politics over monarchy when he was presented with the choice post-partition. The timing, they say, is perfect as the enthusiastic participation of the local people in the poll process has shown that democratic values Karan Singh espoused have survived in Jammu and Kashmir despite years of terrorist activity. Karan Singh has also been in the news on the completion of 75 years in public life with Congress MP Shashi Tharoor describing him as the best President the country never had.
The Uttar Pradesh unit of the Congress is angry and upset with the party leadership’s decision to stay away from the coming nine bypolls in the state. Since the Congress did not get the seats of its choice, its leaders felt it was better to concede all the seats to the Samajwadi Party rather than suffer a humiliating defeat. Local Congress leaders feel the decision will hamper the party’s growth in the state as its graph was picking up after it won seven seats in the last Lok Sabha election. However, the Congress was in no position to drive a hard bargain after its poor performance in Haryana. Instead of battling it out, the Congress leadership felt it was more important to keep the INDIA bloc intact. This gambit may well backfire as sullen Congress workers are unlikely to cooperate with the SP in the poll campaign.
