BS Yediyurappa, former chief minister of Karnataka, is drawing sympathy from a section of party colleagues. He worked hard for four decades to single-handedly make Bharatiya Janata Party the force it is in Karnataka today. The high command backed him to bring down the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) government in 2019. He did. They wanted him to resign as CM two years later. He did. Yet, the 80-year-old leader is virtually grovelling for an assembly seat for his younger son and heir apparent, BY Vijayendra. His other son, Raghavendra, is already a parliamentarian. He had first entered the Lok Sabha in 2009, long before Narendra Modi came to the centre stage in Delhi.
BSY has opted out of electoral politics to pass on his assembly seat—Shikaripura, which he won eight times—to Vijayendra. He declared his wish publicly. But the high command is keeping the party’s most popular leader in Karnataka on tenterhooks. They would rather have Vijayendra contest from Varuna constituency, which will pit him against former CM Siddaramaiah.
Yediyurappa’s detractors in Delhi earlier denied his son’s nomination to the Legislative Council.
They now want Vijayendra to leave his father’s safe seat to contest from a tough one. No wonder BSY has announced his son’s candidature from Shikaripura, seeking to pre-empt any surprise from the high command.
So, why is it that the heir apparent of the most popular BJP leader in Karnataka should face such resistance from Delhi leadership if he wants to enter the legislative council or the assembly? Is it PM Modi’s public stance against dynastic politics? But the BJP is as much a dynastic party as the Congress, except the fact that the latter is controlled by a family. Look at the number of dynasts in the Modi Cabinet—Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan, Anurag Thakur, Nirmala Sitharaman, Kiren Rijiju, and Jyotiraditya Scindia to name a few.
Also read: Modi dislikes dynasties. But he dislikes BJP losing elections even more
Problem BJP dynasts face
Let’s look at another example. Modi-Shah installed Samrat Choudhary as Bihar BJP chief last month. It was hailed as a master stroke. Choudhary belongs to the politically influential Kushwaha community, which along with Kurmis constitute the so-called Luv-Kush votebank of CM Nitish Kumar. Samrat Choudhary happens to be another dynast. He is the son of Shakuni Choudhary who was once close to Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar. So was Samrat Choudhary who was part of the Rabri Devi-led Cabinet in Bihar. Think of how the new Bihar BJP chief would raise the BJP’s catchiest slogan of jungle raj during Lalu-Rabri governments. Being a dynast, a turncoat, a part of the so-called jungle raj regime—nothing matters in the BJP if you can bring votes. But even that is not necessarily the criterion. When former union minister CP Thakur’s term in the Rajya Sabha ended in 2020, the BJP nominated his son, Vivek, in his place.
In the case of Yediyurappa, of course, he remains the party’s biggest vote-catcher in Karnataka. It’s not for nothing that the party is bending over backwards not to upset him. That’s why when PM Modi, during his fifth of the seven visits to Karnataka in the last three months, holds BSY’s hands, the picture goes viral.
That’s why when Amit Shah chooses to have breakfast with BSY, pats his son Vijayendra’s back and insists on accepting a bouquet from him, they make headlines.
A fortnight back when BSY had declared that his son would contest from Shikaripura, CT Ravi, BJP national general secretary, took a jibe at him, saying, “Decisions aren’t made in the kitchen in our party.”
But can the BJP afford to snub BSY by denying Shikaripura seat to Vijayendra? That’s the question the party high command must be discussing today.
Utpal, son of former defence minister and former Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar, wasn’t fortunate to have his father on his side when he wanted to take a plunge into electoral politics. After Manohar Parrikar’s death, his son staked claim to his father’s political legacy and sought party ticket to contest the Panaji assembly bypoll. His father had represented the seat for over two decades. The BJP high command chose to deny the ticket to Utpal.
The BJP lost the bypoll in Panaji, a seat it held for 25 years. Congress’ Atanasio Monserrate who won went on to join the BJP. In the 2022 assembly election, Utpal again sought the ticket from BJP to contest from his father’s seat. It was denied again. He wouldn’t shift to another constituency as his party desired. Utpal quit the BJP to contest as an Independent candidate. He lost by around 700 votes to Monserrate. Manohar Parrikar’s son would obviously have stood a very good chance if the BJP had given him the ticket.
Vijayendra and Utpal are not the only children of former chief ministers whose ambitions to inherit their parents’ political legacy don’t get approval of the BJP high command. Former Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh’s son, Abhishek, has been in political wilderness since the BJP denied him a ticket in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Abhishek had won the Rajnandgaon seat, once represented by his father, by 2.35 lakh votes, the biggest victory in the state. Following the BJP’s rout in the assembly elections in 2018, the high command was said to be upset with Raman Singh. The BJP decided to drop all its 10 sitting MPs from Chhattisgarh, including Abhishek. The BJP won Rajnandgaon in 2019, too, but its victory margin went down to around 1.12 lakh.
Former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje’s son, Dushyant Singh, has been a four-term MP from Jhalawar-Baran, winning four consecutive elections since his electoral debut in 2004. The BJP high command hasn’t thought it fit to make him a minister or give him an organisational responsibility.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh’s son, Pankaj, retained his Noida seat in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly election with one of the biggest victory margins—1.81 lakh votes. His party colleagues rate him as a very bright young politician. But the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister’s son must remain content with his latest appointment as one of 18 UP BJP vice-presidents.
There is a lot of curiosity in Madhya Pradesh about CM Shivraj Chouhan’s son Kartikeya’s political activities in his father’s constituency, Budhni. He has been travelling extensively in villages. Since 2018 when he addressed a rally in bypoll-bound Kolaras, his first political event outside Budhni, there has been growing speculation about his electoral debut. In the meantime, Kartikeya went abroad for studies and returned to nurse his father’s constituency. Will he make an electoral debut? Mum’s the word for now.
Poonam Mahajan, daughter of late Pramod Mahajan, created history when she won Mumbai North Central Lok Sabha constituency in 2014. It was the first time ever that the BJP won that seat. She went on to win it in 2019, too. Pramod Mahajan was to Atal Bihari Vajpayee what Amit Shah is to Narendra Modi today. Yet, it didn’t help her political career. She had to fight her way up starting with the Maharashtra unit of the BJYM and becoming its national president in 2016. A brilliant politician with proven organisational acumen, Mahajan must be wondering what more she must do to figure in Modi-Shah’s scheme of things- in the government or the party organisation.
Varun Gandhi, a three-term BJP MP who became the youngest ever national general secretary in 2013, must be wondering why he fell out of favour with the high command. His mother, Maneka Gandhi, being in the Union Cabinet could have been a probable reason for Modi-Shah to give him the go-by. He hasn’t found favour with them even after his mother was left out of the Cabinet in 2019. A sharp politician gifted with intellect and wit, Varun seems to be losing his patience now. His tweets in the past few months aren’t necessarily in sync with the party line.
These are many other young dynasts in the BJP who may be wondering how long they must stand in the queue to get a look-in. In some cases, reasons might look obvious. BS Yediyurappa, Vasundhara Raje, and Raman Singh, for instance, don’t enjoy the best of relationship with the high command and their children seem to be paying for their ‘mistakes’. One can, however, make a counter-argument that Modi-Shah were not a great fan of former Himachal Pradesh CM Prem Kumar Dhumal but they have been promoting his son, Anurag Thakur. Also, Utpal’s late father, Manohar Parrikar, enjoyed Modi’s confidence. Poonam Mahajan’s late father might have been very close to Vajpayee but she has been a Modi loyalist through and through.
There is, therefore, no common thread that could explain why some dynasts make it big in Modi’s party and government while many others are consistently overlooked. If only Anurag Thakur could give them a tip or two! For now, they may want to tune in to Gully Boy: Kaun bola mujhse na ho payega…apna time ayega…
Views are personal.