UP polls: BJP fails to keep promise of freeing its party of dynasty politics
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had pleaded with his party members to desist from nepotism, but the second list of candidates released by BJP for the 2017 UP Assembly polls, speaks otherwise.
At the BJP national executive meet on January 7, PM Modi had explicitly warned: “Please don't put pressure for securing tickets for your family members, whether a brother, a sister or children. Party will do justice to all. We have to work unitedly to win all the five states.”
The party lists of candidates for the Assembly polls in UP and Uttarakhand, however, feature many relatives – husbands, wives, sons and daughters.
The most notable sign of nepotism within the BJP list of candidates is the conspicuous presence of a name that belongs to the UP BJP general secretary, Pankaj Singh.
Son of Union home minister Rajnath Singh, Pankaj, intriguingly enough, has got a ticket to contest from Noida, after replacing sitting BJP MLA Bimla Batham.
Batham, in fact, was the one of just the two MLAs who had won during the UP by-lections, out of the total 11 seats vacated by BJP MLAs once they were elected in 2014 general elections and joined Lok Sabha. However, Bimla Batham, despite her electoral record, was forced to make way for Pankaj Singh.
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| Union home minister Rajnath Singh's son, Pankaj, has got a ticket to contest from Noida. |
This has sparked off rebellion from other ticket hopefuls. In Noida, Sanjay Bali, considered close to the Union minister of culture, Mahesh Sharma, quit from his post of the general secretary of the district BJP unit. Bali lashed out at the BJP for resorting to “dynastic politics” and said there was “no difference” left between the BJP and other parties.
In Kairana, supporters of the BJP leader Anil Chauhan protested against the party on Sunday.
Pankaj Singh later hit back by saying, “I have been working for the party and I am ready to work more. I’m not in politics just to be a candidate, but also work for the society and the people. I have been associated with the BJP for the last 15 years and going forward with the same mentality of a worker in the coming election.”
In his defence, the junior Singh has been in contention for a ticket since the 2007 UP Assembly elections, when he was almost set to make his debut from Chandauli, the hometown of Rajnath Singh. However, the elder Singh, beingthe national president of the BJP at that time, in a bid to avoid any controversy did not give his son the party ticket.
UP Assembly elections 2012 were no different. However, 2017 Assembly elections have finally paved way for Pankaj Singh to contest the poll from the coveted seta of Noida.
However, Pankaj Singh is not the only kin from a political family to get a ticket. Before Pankaj, Sandeep Singh, the grandson of Rajasthan governor and former UP CM Kalyan Singh, was given the ticket from Atrauli Assembly constituency, in the first list released by the party recently.
Prateek Sharan Singh, son of Brij Bhusan Sharan Singh, will contest on a BJP ticket from Gonda; Nilima Katiyar, daughter of Prem Lata Katiyar, from Kalyanpur; and Sunil Dutt Dwivedi, the son of Brahm Dutt Dwivedi, is contestingfrom the Farrukhabad seat.
Another contentious name on the list is that of Mriganka Singh, the daughter of Kairana MP, Hukum Singh. In June last year, Singh had grabbed headlines after he claimed that 250 Hindu families had fled the town of Kairana in a “mass exodus”.
In 2014, when Singh vacated the Kairana Assembly seat after winning the Lok Sabha election, Anil Chauhan fought the by-poll and lost by less than 1,100 votes.
Anil Chauhan had quit BJP a few days back protesting against Hukum Singh's political inclination towards his daughter Mriganka. Chauhan, who was also seeking the ticket form in a bid to contest from Kairana, will now fight the poll as an RLD candidate instead.
Ashutosh Tandon, alias Gopal, son of BJP veteran Lalji Tandon, is contesting from Lucknow East. The sitting MLA, son of former Lucknow MP and a close confidante of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was fielded by the BJP during by-election, after the seat was vacated by Kalraj Misra, following his victory in Lok Sabha elections from Deoria. Gopal has again got the ticket from the significant seat.
In Uttarakhand, the BJP is facing infighting over rebel Congress MLAs being given tickets, while at the same time, they too are coming under fire for giving tickets to children of politicians.
Rebel Congress leader Vijay Bahuguna’s son, Saurabh Bahuguna, has been given a BJP ticket from Sitarganj and former Uttarakhand CM BC Khanduri’s daughter Ritu Khanduri Bhushan will contest from the Yamkeshwar seat.
Vinod Khandari, the son of former state cabinet minister, Matuhar Singh, is contesting from the Devprayag Assembly constituency.
The defectors from other parties, who have found a place in the candidates' list, include Rita Bahuguna Joshi, who defected from the Congress to join the BJP; Brajesh Pathak, who came from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP); and Nand Gopal Gupta Nandi, another Congress defector.
Congress, which has faced criticism for promoting nepotism in politics, was quick to hit back at the BJP.
All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary Naseeb Singh said, “This has made it clear that there is a huge difference between the kathni (words) and karni (deeds) of the BJP. Theirs is a party full of liars. Besides, it is wrong to compare BJP’s political families to the Gandhi family, which has sacrificed a lot for the country. The Gandhi family is in politics for national service while BJP leaders are in politics for personal gain.”
The BJP, however, maintained that the family of a potential candidate could be “neither a qualification nor a disqualification”.
Union minister Sanjeev Balyan said, “People have not been given tickets based on which family they belong to. Take Pankaj Singh, for example. He has been a party worker for the last 15 years and has worked hard. He is popular in Noida and his chances of winning are high. All these factors are looked into. While we cannot promote someone because they belong to a certain family, the opposite is also true. We can’t disqualify someone on grounds of who their parents may be.”
The BJP has been openly criticising "bhai-bhatijawad" (nepotism) in politics. But it now can be said without a doubt that it was simply political rhetoric and point-scoring over the Congress. There is absolutely nothing in this front that conveys that the BJP is “party with a difference”.
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