Junior Sabha

Is there a fresh lining to this greying cloud? Only if you look very hard, and then, very close to the power coteries and families.

To the banner born

POSSIBLY the most famous surname expected to be in the fray for the upcoming general elections is Jyotiraditya Scindia. The 33-year-old Harvard graduate contested and won the bypoll for the Guna constituency after the death of his father Madhavrao in an aircrash in 2001. No surprises here, but as with his father before him, the hold over the Gwalior-Chambal region prevents Jyotiraditya from reaching out to voters across Madhya Pradesh.

Says Scindia Junior, ‘‘In the last 21 months, my constituency has seen development work worth Rs 500-600 crore. Work worth Rs 100 crore has been done in Gwalior, which is outside my constituency.’’ It’s a touchy subject: Gwalior might see aunt Yashodhara contesting the seat on a BJP ticket.

Across state borders, family is also a challenge for Ranvijay Pratap Judeo. His paternal uncle and former Minister of State for Environment and Forests Dilip Singh was caught on camera accepting a bribe; the CBI inquiry he now faces will probably be responsible for the BJP ticket for Jangir-Champa going to Ranvijay.

Educated in Raipur and Delhi, the 35-year-old fondly referred to as Raja has honoured the family tradition of RSS-VHP work; he is also a member of the state BJP working committee. This is one young man who knew where his sights lay: Offered an party ticket for the Raigarh assembly constituency, he declined politely, saying he wanted to enter the Lok Sabha.

The same age, but a parliamentary veteran in contrast is Ashok Argal. He was elected to the Lok Sabha first in 1996 from the reserved Morena constituency in Madhya Pradesh, and has not lost a single election since. His last name may not be so well known, but for all intents and purposes, he carries forward the legacy of his father Chhabiram Argal, whom Morena elected MP in 1989.

A Dalit of the Jatav community, Argal’s decision to head early for national politics may not have been a wise one. Even after three parliamentary stints, he remains little known. A similar stint in state politics in a party searching for SC leaders of stature could have earned him greater prominence.

If Argal’s famous, it’s because of the allotment of an LPG agency in Morena to his driver Mayaram Angoria, who is listed as living at Argal’s residence.

Argal’s defence: ‘‘Mayaram was a truck-driver. When I became an MP, I asked him to drive for me. I thought, once I was no longer MP what would he do, so I asked him to apply.’’ Young age is no antidote to old-fashioned political logic.

Akhilesh Yadav, son of Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh, on the other hand, has no compunctions in admitting that most of his time is spent on signing recommendation letters for his supporters. ‘‘They come to me with huge expectations, which I attempt to fulfill,’’ says the two-term MP from Kannauj.

Family lineage may have accounted for his entry into politics, but he likes to think of himself as a full-fledged netaji now. ‘‘Politics is something you should do only if you are interested in it and want to use it to bring about change in society,’’ says the 30-going-on-31 Akhilesh.

For the BJP’s Gorakhpur sure-shot Yogi Adityanath — inheritor of his guru Mahant Avaidyanath’s political mantle — the primary change he would like to bring about is ‘‘the construction of a magnificent Ram temple at Ayodhya’’.

The science graduate from Garhwal is also politically savvy. When the BJP central leadership ignored his wishes while distributing tickets for the Gorakhpur assembly segment, Adityanath hit back by fielding his own candidate — and making sure he won.

While Adityanath’s background worked for him, Manvendra Singh had quite the opposite experience. ‘‘When I first fought the Lok Sabha elections (from Barmer, in 1999), I was known as Jaswant Singh’s son. But they didn’t know my characteristics as a person, and that worked against me,’’ says the former journalist and Territorial Army officer.

‘‘But over the last five years that I have worked in the area, the response has been fantastic,’’ says Singh, 39. ‘‘The profile of the voter today is young. It is easier for them to relate to a younger leader. My age is an asset.’’

State-mate and party colleague Nihal Chand, frontrunner for the BJP ticket from Sriganganagar, would agree. When he walked into the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1996, he was the youngest MP ever. At 33 today, Chand is a man on the move. ‘‘This is where my youth helps,’’ he says. ‘‘(Plus, I found) all the ministers would say, ‘You’re young, you have a long way to go’, before clearing my proposals.’’

Chand joined politics after the death of his father Begaram Chaudhary, a member of the Swatantra Party and some-time MP. The father of two spends most of his time in his village near Raisinghnagar ‘‘amidst my people’’.
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The people of Satara have been ‘‘my people’’ for Udayanraje Bhosale, 38, for four centuries now. No wonder then, that the 13th direct descendent of Chhatrapati Shivaji should be wooed by all leading political parties. His late uncle Abhaysinhraje — with whom he fell out — supported the NCP, his cousin backs the Congress, but Udayanraje preferred to go with the saffron alliance.

However, the BJP and the Shiv Sena severed ties with him after Udayanraje was accused of the murder of a rival in the 1998 elections. An acquittal later, his following has only been strengthened. No wonder the feelers are coming thick and fast.

Across the country, in the North-East, Abdul Khaleque, too, depends on old family ties. Grandson of a Congress volunteer in the Independence movement, his family has old associations with the family of former President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed. Khaleque is a strong contender for the Congress ticket from Barpeta, once represented by Ahmed.

With just four years in formal politics, the 33-year-old former journalist claims his USP is his ‘‘in-depth knowledge of contemporary Indian politics and Assam’s political and socio-economic issues’’. ‘‘Oldies have failed to represent the cause of the state, and it is now time for the younger people to take over,’’ he says.

Also raring to go is Randeep Surjewala, president of the Indian Youth Congress and front-runner for the Hisar Congress ticket. He joined politics as soon as he was eligible to contest elections, took on Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala three times in Narwana and defeated him once.

Son of former state Congress chief Shamsher Singh Surjewala and related by marriage to former Union Agriculture Minister Balram Jakhar, Surjewala now believes he’s all set for the Big One.

Paying their dues

AND then there are the others, who make it to the most exclusive club in the land by virtue of persistence, not pedigree. The climb is harder, but not without humour, as student leader-turned-three-time MP Samik Lahiri, 36, recounts. ‘‘I was travelling to Delhi by the Rajdhani a couple of months after I got elected at the age of 27. The ticket checker came to me and demanded, ‘‘Tumhara saab kahan hai? (Where’s your MP?)’’ I kept a straight face and told him he’d gone to the loo!’’

In politics, the young man is really the odd man out, agrees Lahiri. ‘‘I sometimes felt out of place amid all the grey-haired people. But there is an advantage for being young. People forgive mistakes,’’ says the CPI(M) man who has retained his party’s nomination for the Diamond Harbour seat.

Cutting across party lines, Ranen Barman (RSP MP from Balurghat) and Satyajit Gaekwad (Congress MP from Vadodara) believe that is reason enough for young people to join the party. ‘‘Old people sometimes cannot summon the courage for new ventures,’’ says Barman, 36, who has just been renominated.

Gaekwad, who joined active politics in 1992, however, believes the stacks are heavily loaded against young people. ‘‘The mindset of people is such they prefer older, experienced people,’’ says the 40-year-old.

Politics also requires professionals, agrees Vandana Chavan, a priority contender for the Congress ticket for the Pune Lok Sabha seat. She joined politics in 1992 at family friend Sharad Pawar’s say-so. ‘‘I thought I would leave after five years and go back to criminal law,’’ she smiles. ‘‘It was never to be. The Congress needs new faces, particularly my kind of people.’’

It has another such face in Rajni Patil, also 40 and a former lawyer. The chairperson of the Maharashtra State Women’s Finance Corporation is also perhaps the only woman politician to own a sugar factory, a fact significant for the cash-strapped Congress.

‘‘It’s an uphill task for a woman in politics to carve a niche for herself,’’ says the beauty from Beed, home constituency of BJP honcho Gopinath Munde. ‘‘Nothing comes easy.’’

To that end, she’s been trying her best. She is credited with organising a massive Sonia Gandhi rally in Beed and getting the Congress president to wear Maharashtra’s traditional navwari (nine yard) saree for exclusive photographs, which have now been made into election posters.

Cut from the same cloth but of a different colour is Bhavna Gawli, who was handpicked by Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray to contest her maiden election — to the Lok Sabha — in 1999. Spunky, defiant and completely inspired by Thackeray’s ideology, she has yet to make her presence felt in the House. In all likelihood, her pet constituency of Washim will give her another chance.

Like the party has given Sanjay Nirupam. There’s still a year to go to his Rajya Sabha term, but the journalist-turned-Sena firebrand is preparing to contest the Lok Sabha elections against Congress veteran Sunil Dutt in the Mumbai North-West constituency.

‘‘The NDA government has done very little for the younger generation,’’ says Nirupam. ‘‘Fifty-four per cent of the population is below 25, but the NDA government directs its policies towards the older generation.’’

Sayam Lodha of the Congress has no debts to repay, he is just a young man in a hurry: ‘‘All 60-plus politicians should make themselves comfortable in the Rajya Sabha and leave the Lower House for more energetic youngsters.’’

The 38-year-old made his mark in the Rajasthan assembly as a vociferous debators and retained his Shivgunj seat in spite of the BJP wave in December 2003. He says, ‘‘I am here till the end and I will make sure I get there.’’

There, for the moment, is the Lok Sabha, via the Pali constituency.

On surer ground than Lodha is Pradeep Gandhi, protege of Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, who has reportedly promised him his BJP Lok Sabha constituency of Rajnandgaon in exchange of Gandhi’s assembly seat of Dongargaon.

It is not a deal that would cause too many raised eyebrows: Gandhi, 39, earned his colours in the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. And he looked after Singh’s constituency when the CM was preoccupied with state affairs.

An heir with a more shaky legacy is Sachin Ahir, NCP MLA from the labour-dominated Sewree constituency in Central Mumbai, candidate-designate for the Mumbai South Central Lok Sabha constituency, and nephew of former underworld don Arun Gawli.

Mohan Rawle, the sitting MP, has won from here four times. But Ahir’s CV indicates he is the perfect man to take on the Sena. In 1999, when he snatched the Sewree Assembly seat from BJP at the age of 27, he was the youngest MLA in the Maharashtra Assembly. Ahir also leads the Rashtriya Mill Mazdoor Sangh, the only recognised union to represent millworkers in Mumbai’s textile units.

His take on politics? ‘‘Politics isn’t dirty, some politicians are. It depends on your attitude.’’

Right, Shahnawaz Hussain would say. The Muslim face of the Hindutva-driven BJP is almost certain to be renominated for the minority-dominated Kishanganj seat. Far from being apologetic about his political moorings, the 35-year-old argues his case against the Congress with utmost self-confidence. His constituents complain he is better known in Delhi than back home.

Lateral entrants

AMONG the surprise contenders — as opposed to opportunists — for nominations to Lok Sabha seats this year are steel magnate Naveen Jindal, athlete Jyotirmayee Sikdar and television queen Bobbeeta Sharma. A mixed bunch which indicates there’s hope yet for the Indian polity.

At 33, Jindal is the youngest of the three. If Delhi’s political circuit is to be believed, the industrialist-cum-polo player-cum-national shooting champion and upholder of every Indian’s right to fly the national flag in private premises is all set to fight the Lok Sabha election from Kurukshetra, Haryana. Source say both the Congress and the BJP have approached him — father O P Jindal is the Congress MLA from Hisar — but Naveen himself is not telling.

On the phone from Malaysia, where he’s participating in the Asian Shooting Championship, he will only say, ‘‘Indian politics needs young people now more than ever before.’’

Sikdar, too, is aiming for bigger things. The 1998 Bangkok Asian Games medal-winner came a cropper in her bid for assembly power in 2001, but the CPI(M) leadership has fielded her again for the Krishnagar Lok Sabha constituency, currently represented by Union minister and BJP leader Satyabrata Mukherjee.

‘‘I am young and that’s an advantage because you learn everything afresh and you can spend all our energy on it,’’ says Sikder, 34.

Media personality Bobbeeta Sharma, a strong contender for the Congress ticket from Guwahati, has already shown she possesses ounces of energy, travelling around the world with her popular TV show Bideshat Apon Manuh (Our People Abroad).

Sharma, 38, is known to be close to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, helping her drape the Assamese mekhala-chadar whenever she is in Assam. Hailing from a well-known family of the state, she is a spokesperson for the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee. Interestingly, her rival for the Congress Guwahati ticket is her father-in-law, veteran Congressman Phani Sharma.

Ah, that perennial battle between the young and the old…

Hartosh Singh Bal, Sabyasachi Bandopadhyay, Mukesh Bhardwaj, Haima Deshpande, Shailesh Gaikwad, Samudra Gupta Kashyap, Pradeep Kaushal, Anuradha Nagaraj, Kota Neelima, Prafulla Marpakwar, Amit Sharma, Ashwani Sharma and Anna M M Vetticad