The Hindu : Different, for now

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Sunday, Feb 15, 2004

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Different, for now

The BJP has remained relatively immune to the "dynasty disease". However, it has not hesitated to give the ticket to a party leader's relative if it thought he or she could win. Neena Vyas reports.

IN 1996, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee first took the oath of office as Prime Minister, he appointed Ranjan Bhattacharya, husband of his foster daughter, as an Officer on Special Duty in the PMO. It immediately became a talking point in the Bharatiya Janata Party, but nothing much happened as the Government lasted just 13 days.

Even at that time, some senior party leaders pointed out that what Mr. Vajpayee had done was "not done in the BJP." And sure enough, when he took oath as Prime Minister for the second time in 1998, no official appointment was given to Mr. Bhattacharya. The party "tradition," which strongly disfavoured any attempt to anoint relatives as political heirs, had won.

Six years later, there is no doubt the BJP is one of the few parties in the country that remains comparatively unaffected by the "dynasty" virus, although there are many instances of wives or sons and daughters of its leaders being given the party ticket.

The Jana Sangh, the previous avatar of the BJP, was born in the early 1950s as the political arm of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh with a handpicked cadre. Till 1977 when it merged with the Janata Party, the Jana Sangh was completely controlled by the RSS. Many of the top leaders were RSS pracharaks — by definition bachelors and there was little scope for families getting involved.

It was in 1980 that the BJP was born and since then, it has grown to become the largest party in the Lok Sabha. The malaise of "dynasty" has been creeping in — Vijayraje Scindia was all along a senior leader of the party and her daughter, Vasundhara Raje, is today the Chief Minister of Rajasthan; Finance Minister Jaswant Singh's son, Manvendra Singh, is now very much in politics. He contested the Barmer Lok Sabha seat and lost in 1999 and is hopeful of getting the party ticket again; the Union Minister of State for Youth Affairs, Vijay Goel, is the son of Chartilal Goel, who was a prominent name in the party's Delhi politics; the Vice-President, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat's son-in-law, Narpat Singh, is an MLA and a Minister in Rajasthan; and the party may try to cash in on the Kumaramangalam name in Tamil Nadu — after the death of P.R. Kumaramangalam, his sister was inducted into the BJP and could be given the party ticket depending on what constituencies are allotted to the BJP in the seat-sharing with the AIADMK.

There are many more instances of people with political pedigree being accommodated. Cabinet Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is the son of Thakur Prasad who was at one time the BJP chief in Bihar; Anoop Mishra, nephew of Mr. Vajpayee, is a Minister in Madhya Pradesh and the Prime Minister's niece, Karuna Shukla, is BJP national secretary. And the party's prodigal son, Kalyan Singh, has already inducted his son, Rajvir Singh, into politics. This is by no means a complete list.

One reason why the BJP has remained relatively immune from the "dynasty" disease is that till the resurgence of Mr. Vajpayee on the national scene, the party did not have a leader with a name it could exploit. The truth is that whenever the party has felt that a relative of a party leader could win a constituency, it has not hesitated to allot the party ticket. Like any other party, the BJP is in the power game. Finally, in a parliamentary democracy, a son or a daughter or any other relative may initially have an advantage. But they will have to prove their mettle by helping get the votes into the ballot boxes.

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