Sachin Pilot is a Congress MLA from Rajasthan’s Tonk and the son of Rajesh Pilot who was also a Congress leader. He has been a two-time MP, a union cabinet minister, an MLA, the president of the Rajasthan Congress, and the deputy chief minister of Rajasthan. Sachin Pilot was the youngest politician to ever become MP when he represented Dausa in the Lok Sabha at the age of 26. He is also the first Union minister to be commissioned in the territorial army.
Sachin Pilot is credited with the massive turnaround of the Congress in Rajasthan in the 2018 polls, when the party won 100 of the 195 seats it contested. This, after a poor show in 2013, when it won just 21 seats. He was, however, not chosen as the party’s CM candidate, who picked veteran leader Ashok Gehlot instead. Sachin Pilot’s critical stance against his own party government in 2020 and tussle with Gehlot has since been a major talking point in political circles.
Political dynasties are very similar to royal families when there used to be kings and kingdoms. Neither is good for democracy. Also such marriages are definitely political, political power is the main driver and that is not personal.
Maharashtra
Sharad Pawar family–Ajit Pawar family links through marriage networks
The article discusses the Pawars but doesn’t explore how Maharashtra’s political elite is interconnected through multiple marital and kinship ties that cut across party affiliations and factions.
Munde–Mahajan family
Late BJP leaders Gopinath Munde and Pramod Mahajan were related through marriage. Their descendants remain influential across Maharashtra politics, but the article does not touch on this network.
Jammu & Kashmir
The article misses the longstanding personal and family links between the Abdullahs and other rival political families in J&K. Political competition there has often coexisted with close social and family relationships.
Andhra Pradesh / Telangana
The article does not mention the extensive family connections linking leaders from the Telugu political ecosystem, including families associated with N. T. Rama Rao, N. Chandrababu Naidu, and Daggubati Venkateswara Rao. These relationships have shaped politics across party lines for decades.
Karnataka
Several major Lingayat and Vokkaliga political families have marital ties extending beyond party boundaries. The article largely ignores southern India, where such cross-party family networks are common.
A particularly notable omission
One of the strongest examples of politics transcending party lines through marriage is the extended NTR–Naidu–Daggubati family network in Andhra Pradesh. Despite political rivalries, splits, and changing alliances, the family relationships have remained a major factor in state politics for decades. This is arguably a more influential example than some of the cases highlighted in the article.
What the article really misses
The article treats these marriages as isolated examples. What’s missing is the larger pattern: India’s political class often functions as an interconnected social network. Marriages between political, business, and regional elite families are far more common than the public realizes, especially in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Rajasthan, and Jammu & Kashmir. The Sule-Lakhani marriage is therefore not an exception, it is part of a much broader phenomenon.
Party workers who kill themselves for their leaders’ ‘ideology’ – please make note.
Ideological differences are no reason to die for!!