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Sunday, Sep 26, 2004

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National

Politics runs in the families

By Mahesh Vijapurkar

MUMBAI, SEPT. 25. When sugar baron Rajarambapu Patil died in 1984, son Jayant quit his studies overseas to return to keep his father's rival, Vasantdada Patil, away from the Walva constituency. He retained his father's sugar cooperative, then won the Assembly seat and in the outgoing Government, was the Finance Minister. That was a rare case of ``natural succession.'' In Aurangabad, Sahebrao Dongaonkar, MP, made his 18-year-old son a sugar factory chairman first. Ideas of college came later.

Elsewhere too in Maharashtra, only sons, daughters, brothers, brothers-in-law, sons-in-law and cousins are the preferred lot to be promoted by leaders in their own lifetimes to keep the family's grip on politics and the ensuing gains. This time too, the kith and kin of politicians have got the party ticketfrom the Congress(I) and the Nationalist Congress Party to contest. Where the ticketis denied, they are sure to surface as rebels or independents. This is a predominant tendency of the Maratha agrarian elite.

Fielding relatives is a four-decade-old practice, which has so far thrown up at least 100 powerful families in Maharashtra that have clout spread over huge swathes of a district to an entire district. They want to hold on to the families' political space in the local turf. The inescapable reality is that given the encouragement to people from within select families, drawn from across the State but mostly Western Maharashtra and Marathwada, the Congress(I) and the NCP are ``federations of families.'' And none of the beneficiaries of such a system — parties that give the ticket or candidates who get it — are even apologetic about it.

Political oxygen

To them, continuing access to power means all and to stay in reckoning in Mumbai and back home, the tag of "an MLA" is all-important; it is their political oxygen. As a rule, trends show, Marathas cannot be anywhere else except on the side of political power and in the process it resurrects feudalism across Maharashtra. Their only explanation is that none need worry because people, with their votes, have backed the process.

People other than Marathas are not far behind. Chaggan Bhujbal's son Pankaj is on the ballot; Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde's Rajasthani son-in-law has got the ticket. Eknath Gaekwad, MP, fought for his reward for defeating Manohar Joshi by getting daughter Varsha nominated from the Congress. The future could see the list grow.

Here is an indicative, not exhaustive, list of "dynasties": Sharad Pawar, A. R. Antulay, S. B. Chavan, the V. P. Naik family, Vasantdada Patil, the Vikhe-Patils, the Mohite-Patils all known for having promoted their kith and kin in politics. There are others too: the Hirays (Nashik), the Bhosles (Satara), Vikhe-Patils, the Khanvilkars (Kolhapur) and any number of Patils and Deshmukhs belong to the list. Vilasrao Deshmukh's family is spreading quickly into this domain.

In Karad, Prithviraj Chavan's late father was an MP. So was his mother for many terms. Now, he is a Minister of State in the PMO. The Mohite-Patils are another powerful family: a two-term Congress (I) MLA's son is the NCP's Vijaysinh, Deputy Chief Minister, another was Minister, then MP and now an MLC but he traversed through the BJP. Grandson Ranjit is an MLC too.

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