In targeting Cong, BJP forgets its dynastic politics in UP

Former CM Kalyan Singh’s son, Rajvir, is party’s state vice-president. Rajvir contested the last Assembly election from Bulandshahr’s Debai seat, but lost. Similar was the fate of Gopal Tandon, also state vice-president and Lucknow MP Lalji Tandon’s son. Gopal lost from Lucknow seat. Anurag Singh, who lost Lok Sabha election from Mirzapur in 2009, and is a strong contender for a ticket in the coming polls, is son of former party state president Om Prakash Singh. Anurag is in-charge of Modi’s ‘iron collection programme” in UP.

Sharad Tripathi, son of former state president Ramapati Ram Tripathi, had lost in 2009 LS election from Sant Kabir Nagar. Sources say Sharad is among the leading contenders for a ticket from the same seat in the coming LS election. District general secretary of Bareilly, Virendra Gangwar, is brother-in-law of six-time MP Santosh Gangwar.

State secretary Neelima is the daughter of party’s senior leader and former MLA Premlata Katiyar who is currently state executive member.  Among others are state vice-president of BJP youth wing (Yuva Morcha) Vaibhav Singh, who is the son of former MP Satyadev Singh; another state vice-president of the wing, Raghvendra Tiwari, is the son of former MLA and current state executive member Suresh Tiwari; Meerut youth wing president Vivek Bajpai is the nephew of state BJP president Laxmikant Bajpai.

Ghaziabad district general secretary Mayank Goyal is the son of party leader and former local mayor Damyanti Goyal who passed away Monday.
BJP’s senior leader and MLA from Lucknow, Kalraj Mishra’s son Amit has recently been appointed special invitee member in district executive committee.
When Laxmikant Bajpai was made aware of this exhaustive list that closely follows what Modi repeatedly accuses Congress of, he termed the sons and relatives of current and former BJP leaders as “dedicated workers”.

“In other parties such as Congress and SP, all the important position are held by family members or chele (close associates) of those members. In BJP we have dedicated workers,” he said. During his election rally in Patna in October last year, Modi’s criticism of dynasty politics had circled around his continual use of word ‘shehzada’ for Rahul.