Nine out of 20 BJP candidates for Maharashtra Lok Sabha seats announced on March 13 evening come from political families. The announcement comes even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi accuses his political opponents — the Congress, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Trinamool Congress and other INDIA bloc parties — of engaging in dynasty politics.
BJP candidates from political families include prominent figures such as Union Minister Piyush Goyal, being fielded from the Mumbai North seat, Union Minister of State Bharati Pravin Patil from Nashik’s Dindori, and former Maharashtra Minister Pankaja Munde from Beed.
In the run up to the Lok Sabha election, Mr. Modi and other BJP stalwarts have intensified their criticism of the Opposition, targeting their alleged corruption and dynasty politics, under the rallying cry ‘Mera Bharat, Mera Parivar(My India, My Family)‘. “The country’s ‘140 crore people’ are my family and I’m working day and night for your development,” Mr. Modi said recently.
Political legacies
Mumbai-born three-term Rajya Sabha member Mr. Goyal has a familial background deeply entrenched in politics. His father, the late Ved Prakash Goyal, was a longstanding RSS activist who worked closely with Sangh stalwarts such as Balasaheb Deoras, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and L.K. Advani. His mother, Chandrakanta Goyal, served as a corporator post-Emergency and later represented the Matunga constituency in the Maharashtra Assembly for three terms. The senior Goyal also held the position of Shipping Minister in the Vajpayee cabinet. Mr. Goyal, known for his strategic electoral prowess, is now vying for the Mumbai North seat, previously held by the BJP’s Gopal Shetty, and nurtured by veteran Ram Naik, with whom he enjoys a close relationship.
Similarly, Ms. Munde is being fielded from Beed, taking over the mantle from her younger sister Pritam Munde, and continuing the political legacy of their father, the late Gopinath Munde, a senior BJP leader and former Union Minister. Ms. Pankaja Munde, who has previously served in the Devendra Fadnavis cabinet, is making a comeback attempt after her loss in the 2019 Assembly election to her cousin, the Nationalist Congress Party leader Dhananjay Munde, who is currently a Minister in the Eknath Shinde-Fadnavis-Ajit Pawar government.
Second generation leaders
Dindori’s sitting MP and MoS for Tribal Affairs and Health and Family Welfare, Dr. Pawar, represents the second generation of leadership in her family, succeeding her father Harishchandra Chavan in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Her father-in-law was the NCP’s late Arjun T. Pawar, who served as an eight-time MLA and a Minister in the cabinet of the late Vilasrao Deshmukh of the Congress party.
The BJP has also decided to retain its sitting MPs Sujay Vikhe-Patil from Ahmednagar, and Raksha Khadse from Raver in the Jalgaon district. Dr. Vikhe-Patil is the son of senior BJP leader and Maharashtra Minister Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, a seven-time MLA from the temple town of Shirdi. On the other hand, Ms. Khadse’s father-in-law, Eknath Khadse, is an MLC from the Sharad Pawar faction of the NCP and was a member of the BJP from 1987 until his resignation in October 2020. Mr. Khadse represented the Muktainagar Assembly constituency for six consecutive terms until 2019.
Daughters and sons
Heena Gavit, a tribal leader and two-time MP from Nandurbar, is the daughter of Maharashtra Minister Vijaykumar Gavit. Alongside Ms. Khadse, she had become the youngest MP in the 16th Lok Sabha.
A member of 17th Lok Sabha, Ranjeetsinha Naik-Nimbalkar, was fielded again to represent Madha constituency in western Maharashtra. His father, Hindurao Naik-Nimbalkar, had served as a Shiv Sena MP.
The list also includes newcomer Anup Dhotre, son of sitting MP and former Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development Sanjay Dhotre from Akola. The four-time MP has been bedridden for a couple of years after a paralytic attack, and the BJP has chosen his son to contest from the sensitive Akola seat in the Vidarbha region.
Even Sangli MP Sanjaykaka Patil’s uncle Dinkarrao Patil, a senior Congress leader, was a three-time MLA from the Tasgaon-Kavathe Mahankal constituency.
‘Epitome of nepotism’
Slamming Mr. Modi’s ‘double standards’ and ‘hypocrisy’, Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh argued that the BJP is, in fact, the epitome of nepotism.
“The Prime Minister constantly criticises dynastic politics, but if you look at both the lists of candidates, you will find they are replete with candidates who represent parivarvad. It’s hypocrisy. Whether it’s Ms. Munde, Union Minister Anurag Thakur, Jyotiraditya Scindia, or Ashok Chavan, are all beneficiaries of nepotism within the BJP,” he told The Hindu.
‘Merit-based selection’
However, a senior BJP leader pushed back against the allegations about seat allocation to candidates with political family backgrounds, reiterating the party’s firm stance against dynasty politics and claiming that candidate selection was merit-based. “We do not endorse dynasty politics,” the leader told The Hindu. “Our choices are made purely on the basis of individual merit and public support. If multiple members of a family independently excel in the political arena with popular backing, it should not be considered as dynastic politics,” he said.
Instead, he said, dynastic politics occurred when a political party is controlled by members of a single family, as seen in cases like the DMK, NCP, and the Bharat Rashtra Samiti.
With 48 Lok Sabha seats, Maharashtra has the second highest representation among States, after Uttar Pradesh’s 80 seats. The BJP is the first party in the State to announce candidates for the election, while the opposition MVA is still working on finalising its seat-sharing formula. Even the BJP’s ruling allies, the Shiv Sena and NCP, are yet to announce their candidates.
