New Delhi: For all the grandstanding by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other frontline leaders against dynastic politics and Nari Shakti, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems to have looked the other way when it comes to choosing women candidates for the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
A look at the BJP’s list of women candidates shows that as many as 40 women candidates are related to families with deeply entrenched political connections.
Altogether, the BJP has announced candidates for 417 parliamentary seats of which 68 (a little over 16 percent) are women. The party had fielded 45 women candidates in 2009, 38 in 2014, and 55 in 2019.
Preneet Kaur (wife of Punjab ex-CM Amarinder Singh), Bansuri Swaraj (daughter of Sushma Swaraj), Sita Soren (daughter-in-law of JMM patriarch Shibu Soren), Geeta Koda (wife of former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda), Jyoti Mirdha (granddaughter of former MP Nathuram Mirdha), Gayathri Siddeshwara (wife of former union minister G.M. Siddeshwara), Navneet Rana (wife of three-time MLA Ravi Rana), Malavika Devi (wife of former Kalahandi MP Arka Keshari Deo), Kriti Singh Debbarma (sister of Tipra Motha Party founder Pradyot Kishore Manikya Debbarma) are among the BJP’s prominent women candidates, so far.
Sita Soren conceded that she hailed from a political family, but added it is not her fault. “I am working on the ground with the same energy as a common worker does in a constituency,” she told ThePrint.
While the word was JMM chief Hemant Soren will contest against his sister-in-law Sita Soren, the party has now pitted Nalin Soren in Dumka.
Former union minister and Andhra Pradesh BJP president D. Purandeswari, the BJP candidate at Rajahmundry, is daughter of legendary actor and N.T. Rama Rao.
Six women candidates are in the fray in Maharashtra. Sitting MP Bharati Pawar, who started her journey with NCP, is contesting again in Dindori. Her father-in-law was an eight-time MLA and served as a Maharashtra minister, while her son is also an MLA.
BJP MP Heena Gavit, the daughter of six-time legislator and tribal leader Vijay Gavit, is now seeking a third term from Nandurbar. Senior leader Pankaja Munde, the daughter of late BJP heavyweight Gopinath Munde, is contesting from Beed.
Sitting MP Raksha Khadse is again contesting from Raver. Her father-in-law Eknath Khadse had left the BJP in 2020 and is with the Sharad Pawar-led NCP.
In Jalgaon, the BJP has denied ticket to sitting MP Unmesh Patil to field MLC Smita Wagh. Her husband Uday Wagh is the BJP Jalgaon district president. Sitting MP Navneet Rana is contesting again from Amravati.
As of now, there are six women candidates — Himadri Singh (Shahdol), Sandhya Rai (Bhind), Lata Wankhede (Sagar), Anita Chouhan (Ratlam), Bharti Pardhi (Balaghat), and Savitri Thakur (Dhar) — in Madhya Pradesh, up from four in 2019.
A new face, Anita’s husband is the Madhya Pradesh forest minister and three-time MLA Nagar Singh Chouhan. Another new face Lata Wankhede rose through the ranks to be fielded from Sagar but her husband Nandkishore alias Guddu Wankhede is also in politics.
Sitting BJP MP Himadri Singh — the daughter of former MPs Dalvir Singh and Rajesh Nandini Singh — is looking for another term from Shahdol. Her husband Narendra Maravi is also a BJP leader as well.
A councillor, Bharti Pardhi replaced incumbent MP Dhal Singh Bisen as candidate from Balaghat. Her father-in-law Bholaram Pardhi was an MP in the 1960s, while her husband also dabbles in politics.
Savitri Thakur is an outlier considering none in her family was in politics. Her husband is an ordinary farmer, while she worked as a social worker before plunging into politics. In 2014, she won election from Dhar and became an MP.
Ex-royals in some states
From three in 2019, the BJP has so far nominated five women candidates so far in Rajasthan. Indu Devi Jatav (Dholpur Karauli), Priyanka Balan (Sriganganagar), Manju Sharma (Jaipur), Jyoti Mirdha (Nagaur) and Mahima Vishvaraj Singh (Rajsamand).
Mahima Vishvaraj Singh is related to the erstwhile royal family of Mewar. Her husband Kunwar Vishwaraj Singh Mewar recently got elected as MLA from Nathdwara where he defeated Congress’s C.P. Joshi.
Jaipur candidate Manu Sharma is the daughter of BJP veteran and former state president Bhanwar Lal Sharma.
Priyanka Balan, a new face, has replaced five-time MP Nihal Chand Jain while Indu Devi Jatav, a former panchayat head of Karoli Dholpur, has replaced sitting MP Manoj Rajouria.
“The BJP is a party where even common workers can reach at the top and can aspire for a poll ticket. My candidature is an example,” Priyanka Balan told ThePrint.
Of the four women candidates so far in Odisha, three come from established backgrounds. Bolangir MP Sangeeta Kumar Singh Deo, who belongs to the erstwhile Patnagarh royal family, will contest from the same constituency.
Similarly, Malavika Keshari Deo also has links to the erstwhile royal family of Kalahandi district. Her husband Arka Keshari Deo is a former MP. The couple had exited from the BJD in 2019 and later joined the BJP in 2023.
Anita Priyadarshini, who had unsuccessfully contested from Aska in 2019, is again trying her luck from the same seat. While Anita Priyadarshini’s mother served as Aska MP, her father Ram Krushna Patnaik was a six-time MLA and served as finance minister of Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik.
Sitting Bhubaneswar MP Aparajita Sarangi, who quit IAS service in 2019, has been retained by the party.
Another eastern state, Jharkhand has three women candidates with Sita Soren, Geeta Koda and Annapurna Devi contesting from Dumka, Singhbhum, and Koderma. All the three candidates have political backgrounds.
Annapurna Devi, a Union minister, is the widow of RJD leader and former minister Ramesh Yadav. She was a minister in the JMM government also before she switched to the BJP in 2019.
The BJP is yet to field any women candidate in Bihar which sends 40 representatives to the Lok Sabha.
In Dadra and Nagar Haveli, the BJP is fielding sitting MP Kalaben Delkar. She had become the Shiv Sena MP in 2021 after winning the bypoll which was required after her husband and local MP Mohan Delkar’s death. Banto Kataria, the wife of late BJP leader Rattan Lal Kataria, is contesting from Ambala in Haryana.
Rekha Verma (Dharuhara) and Maneka Gandhi (Sultanpur) in Uttar Pradesh also had family members in politics. While the former is the sitting MP from Dharuhara since 2014, the latter was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 1989.
A senior BJP central functionary sought to play down the presence of candidates with links to prominent political families, saying that the party has fielded many candidates with humble beginnings.
“The PM has already clarified that for the BJP, the definition of dynasty is different. Let’s assume that one family member is a party president and his/her kin only become president, is dynastic politics,” the BJP functionary said.
“It’s true that a family’s political link helps new members to enter the arena as they have their own clout and the party, too, gets a foothold in weak areas. But the party has given tickets to many ordinary members who rose from the ground,” he reasoned.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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