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Journalism of Courage
After the BJP won the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in March last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a victory speech at the BJP headquarters in Delhi where he indicated that one of the lessons learned by the party was that voters do not favour dynastic politics.
“Wherever dynasty politics has been wiped out, there has been development and growth. Family politics is a threat to democracy, and as soon as a ‘parivar (family) party’ comes to power, they become corrupt. The family tries to hold on to power for as long as possible,” Modi said in a speech in May in Hyderabad, targeting the regional Telangana Rashtra Samiti (now the Bharat Rashtra Samithi).
It must have been clear at the time to former Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa that he would not be able to find a way around PM Modi’s resolve against dynastic politics in his efforts to facilitate the electoral debut of his younger son B Y Vijayendra from the family borough of Shikaripura in Shivamogga district.
The BJP, in fact, denied Vijayendra a nomination to the legislative council and this is widely believed to have forced Yediyurappa last July into announcing his decision to retire from electoral politics and facilitate the entry of his son from Shikaripura.
One of the distinguishing characteristics of the BJP’s candidate list for the May 10 Assembly polls is the absence of parent-child combinations, keeping in line with PM Modi’s stand against dynastic politics and this is expected to be a key weapon against the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) during the campaign.
The BJP’s stance against dynastic politics is squarely targeted at the Congress and regional parties that tend to be family-run ventures. While it may have limited yield in state polls, the larger goal of the position is the 2024 general elections when only a combination of the Congress and regional parties can hope to unseat PM Modi.
While all the parties have promoted the political elite within their ranks in the form of the kin of their leaders, the BJP can claim the moral higher ground in Karnataka from the fact that it has not promoted any parent-child combination for the coming elections.
The BJP has given a poll ticket to Vijayendra in the absence of eight-time MLA Yediyurappa; it has given a ticket to Vijayanagar MLA Anand Singh’s son Siddharth Singh but not the three-term legislator; and it has fielded Nikhil Katti in Hukkeri following the death of his father and eight-time MLA Umesh Katti.
Demands for tickets by veterans such as Govind Karjol — the Nagthan seat for his son Gopal Karjol who lost the 2018 polls — and V Somanna — the Govindrajnagar seat for his son Arun Somanna — were ignored by the party leadership even as the fathers were named as candidates. Somanna has been given two tickets for the Chamarajanagar and Varuna seats in what is seen as a challenge to the senior leader to prove his political mettle.
Several other BJP leaders such as Murugesh Nirani and Ramesh Jarkiholi are believed to have been keen to induct their children into the electoral fray but refrained from pushing the issue knowing the stance of the central leadership on the matter.
In February, during a talk in Bengaluru organised by a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) affiliate about the change in political paradigms since 2014, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said ending dynastic politics was one of the key changes in politics during the Modi era.
“Earlier, only members of the ruling families would get opportunities so politics was a privilege. It was a scenario where only if you were born into certain families you could rule otherwise you were useless. Now we have a scenario where those who have the potential can move ahead. This is a big paradigm shift,” Shah claimed.
“Socialist parties have become caste parties and later family parties from the RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal) to the JD(S). In the JD(S), everyone is in politics and so sometimes I wonder who runs their homes. There has been a paradigm shift since 2014,” Shah said.
For the coming Assembly polls, the Congress and the JD(S) have announced lists of candidates replete with father-child combinations.
The Congress has fielded former Union Minister K H Muniyappa and his daughter Roopakala Shashidar; the 92-year-old Shamanur Shivashankarappa and his son S S Mallikarjun; the seven-time Bengaluru MLA Ramalinga Reddy and his daughter Sowmya Reddy. The JD(S) has fielded former CM H D Kumaraswamy and his son Nikhil as well as senior leader G T Deve Gowda and his son Harish Gowda.
However, like both the Congress and the JD(S), the BJP has favoured the political elite in its choice of candidates even if they are not parent-child combinations.
The Jarkiholi brothers, Ramesh and Balachandra, will contest on BJP tickets in Belagavi, state minister Shashikala Jolle who is the wife of the BJP MP Annasaheb Jolle is in the fray in Nippani, Chincoli candidate Avinash Jadhav is the son of the BJP MP Umesh Jadhav, and Saundatti candidate Ratna Mamani is the wife of MLA Anand Mamani who died recently.
“The JD(S) is an example of what happens to a political party if it is in the clutches of a family,” state BJP president Nalin Kateel said on Saturday while pointing out that the party had brought in 52 fresh faces for the polls.
However, a majority of the new candidates of the 212 declared by the BJP so far are old faces, with only 16 existing of its 116 MLAs being replaced so far. As many as 36 of the fresh faces are in seats that the party lost in 2018. The BJP has yet to declare candidates for six seats that are currently held by the party in the state legislature and six that were lost in 2018.
JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy has frequently countered the BJP’s charge of being a family-run political outfit by stating that communal politics is a bigger threat to the future of India than dynastic politics.
“The danger to the nation is not from dynastic political parties, it is posed by communal parties like the BJP. Parties raising emotive issues to grab political ground are the real threats to democracy and pose a threat to constitutional values,” Kumaraswamy said on his social media handle in May 2022 after PM Modi launched a frontal attack on dynastic politics.
