VK Pandian isn’t alone: From Kanshi Ram to George Fernandes, many doyens of politics blossomed outside their home turf

Indian politics abounds in such examples.

MG Ramachandran, one of the icons of Tamil Nadu politics, former chief minister of the state and mentor of J Jayalalithaa, did not belong to Tamil Nadu. He was born in a Malayali Nair family at Kandy in Sri Lanka. Though an Iyengar Brahmin, Jayalalithaa herself was brought up in Karnataka, as her grandfather had shifted to the princely state of Mysore as its court physician. However, having spent her early childhood in Mysore and Bengaluru, she settled down in Tamil Nadu in 1958, at the age of 10.

Think of Dalit politics in Uttar Pradesh, now on the decline, and the first name that comes to mind is Kanshi Ram. He hailed from Punjab, worked at a government lab in Pune, but succeeded in changing the course of UP politics for two decades. It is said that he renounced his family in Punjab when he decided to take forward his Dalit politics in UP initially through the Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (DS-4) and later his party – Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

Mangaluru to Muzaffarpur

Yet another politician of national proportions, so to say, was the intrepid socialist George Fernandes. A native of Mangaluru sent by his family to Bengaluru to become a priest, Fernandes was drawn to labour issues and became a trade union leader. Shifting to Mumbai, he organised many strikes and, in the 1967 Lok Sabha elections, defeated SK Patil, a doyen of Maharashtra politics, from Mumbai. His next hub was to be Bihar. One of the most intrepid anti-Emergency fighters, Fernandes won the Muzaffarpur seat in Bihar from jail by a margin of about 3 lakh votes in 1977. The slogan that became ubiquitous in the Muzaffarpur election was – Jail ka faatak tootega, George hamara chhootega (the gates of the jail will break; our George will be free). His later association with politics largely continued to be from Bihar.

Among those who campaigned for Fernandes in Muzaffarpur in 1977 was a young Sushma Swaraj – whose husband Swaraj Kaushal had been associated with Fernandes – who would go on to become the Minister of External Affairs at the fag end of her career. However, Swaraj, too, began her political career in Haryana in 1977 and branched out, winning Lok Sabha elections from South Delhi in the late 1990s, and then from Vidisha in MP from 2009 onwards. In 1998, she had a very brief stint as Delhi Chief Minister too.

Fernandes apart, Bihar saw yet another “outsider” seek his fortunes in its politics. Hailing from Madhya Pradesh, Sharad Yadav was associated with the Janata Dal (United), a Bihar-based party, for a long time, and won four Lok Sabha elections from Madhepura in the state.

Madhya Pradesh itself is no stranger to the phenomenon. Its prominent Congress face and the party’s potential CM candidate Kamal Nath comes from a business family that was based in Kanpur.

Other “outsiders”

Born in Rohtas of Bihar, Sanjay Nirupam of the Congress spent his political life largely in Mumbai, even in times when the sons-of-the-soil doctrine seemed to have a ready audience in the state. He even served as president of the Mumbai Regional Congress Committee.

Film actor Jaya Prada, who hails from Andhra Pradesh, was associated with the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, and did her politics in the northern state. She also represented Rampur as Lok Sabha MP. Hema Malini, too, comes from an Iyengar Brahmin family from Tamil Nadu, but represents Mathura in UP in the Lok Sabha.

Congress leader Sachin Pilot may be a prominent face in Rajasthan politics but he hails from a Gujjar family, with roots in Greater Noida of western UP. His father Rajesh Pilot made Dausa in Rajasthan his stronghold, making the state his political home.

This trend isn’t new to Rajasthan. Former Lok Sabha Speaker Balram Jakhar, who began representing Sikar in Rajasthan from the 1980s, belonged to Punjab and had studied in Lahore pre-Partition. Former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje also has her roots in the Gwalior Maratha royal family of the Scindias, but married in Rajasthan and has made the state her political turf.

Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple comes from a Rajput family with roots in Uttarakhand, just like Chief Minister of UP Yogi Adityanath, originally Ajay Singh Bisht.

Blast from the past

The trend of the “outsider” politician is as old as modern Indian politics.

India’s first woman Chief Minister, Sucheta Kripalani, CM of Uttar Pradesh from 1963 to 1967, was born in Ambala in a Bengali Brahmo family.

KN Govindacharya, once the BJP’s powerful general secretary, was from Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh but was brought up in Varanasi. He was active as an RSS pracharak in Bihar in his younger days.

Govindacharya got interested in public life as a boy as he was impressed with another “outsider” in Varanasi – CPI leader from the Parsi community Rustam Satin, who won as MLA from Varanasi in 1967 and was also made Minister of State for Home in the Sanyukta Vidhayak Dal state government.