Son rise in State BJP

The ease with which former Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa’s son Mr. Vijayendra was elevated to head the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka testifies to the invisible sinews of dynastic pull in the saffron party.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi spares no opportunity to lampoon the Indian National Congress and the regional parties of following the vanshwad (dynastic politics), the recent transition of leadership of the party in the state shows that it is no less immune to ‘blood is thicker than water’ axiom.

It is not difficult to guess that the party dared not annoy the former CM who maintains a vice-like grip over the party organization and the central organization was averse to risking the legendary leader’s covert diktat.

Such fears had made the party to acquiesce by giving Vijeyendra a ticket from family’s traditional seat of Shikaripur for Assembly election earlier this year.

Despite protestations of innocence, dynastic tendencies run deep and wide within the BJP as they do with other parties. Party chief J.P. Nadda is himself son-in law of former Jabalpur MP Jayashri Banerjee.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s elder son Pankaj Singh is second time MLA of Uttar Pradesh Assembly from Noida. Former UP CM Kalyan Singh’s son Rajveer Singh Raju is MP from Etah. Raju’s wife was twice member of UP Assembly earlier.

Raju’s son Rajveer Singh is a minister in Yogi cabinet. Former UP minister Lalji Tandon’s son is also a minister in Yogi cabinet. Kaiserganj MP Brijbhushan Sharan Singh’s —the man in the news for three continuous months as President of Indian Wrestling Federation—son is MLA from Gonda.

The list from other states similarly goes endless. The party would do well to resist the temptation to daub others with a black brush as its own record is pretty much the same.

However, Mr. Vijayendra will be watched keenly as to how he carries the bedraggled party with himself prior to the Lok Sabha elections early next year.