One of the leitmotifs of Narendra Modi's powerful election campaign was his blistering attack on the Congress's "shehzada" and "maa bete ki sarkar". His belligerence against the politics of dynasty was a forceful war cry, and had the requisite effect. Only a handful of hereditary MPs survived - such as Rahul Gandhi, Jyotiraditya Scindia, President Pranab Mukherjee's son Abhijit Mukherjee and Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda's son Deepender Hooda. Two won in Assam: Tarun Gogoi's son Gourav Gogoi and Santosh Mohan Dev's daughter Sushmita Dev. The majority of Congress princelings lost: R P N Singh, Jitin Prasada, Sachin Pilot, Milind Deora, Sandeep Dikshit, Karti Chidambaram and Ajay, son of the late Arjun Singh.
The losers' list is long: it includes former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, daughter of Babu Jagjivan Ram; Congress ally and former aviation minister Ajit Singh's son Jayant Chaudhury; and a bona fide princess as well, if you count Preneet Kaur of Patiala. It was calculated that well over 50 constituencies had family members contesting the Lok Sabha election. The majority were fielded by the bankrupted Congress, now bereft of their presence in parliament.
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This may give the impression that the age of family pocket boroughs and patrimonial estates is fading and it's time to bid farewell to princelings. Narendra Modi has made it official policy. Not a single scion of a political dynasty is included in the council of ministers, the sole exception being Power Minister Piyush Goyal, whose late father Ved Prakash Goyal was a BJP stalwart. But it was argued that Mr Goyal, with a stellar track record as chartered accountant, lawyer and investment banker, only joined the party after his father's death, and became a key strategist and spokesperson. In fact, prominent BJP leaders like Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje and former finance minister Yashwant Sinha are miffed that their sons, Dushyant Singh and Jayant Sinha, respectively, failed to make it as junior ministers.
In fact, the BJP has its own contingent of heirs apparent in the 16th Lok Sabha. Prominent winners among the 315 first-time MPs are Maneka Gandhi's son Varun Gandhi, former chief ministers Kalyan Singh, Sahib Singh Verma and Prem Kumar Dhumal's sons - Rajbir Singh, Parvesh Verma and Anurag Thakur, respectively - and the son of Chhattisgarh's long-standing chief minister, Abhishek Singh. Many were swept in on Mr Modi's tidal wave but could as easily be cast aside in the next election.
That the prime minister or chief ministers like J Jayalalithaa, Naveen Patnaik and Mamata Banerjee have no progeny to promote may be a matter of cold comfort. Across party lines, however, the family principle holds. The NCP's Supriya Sule remains Sharad Pawar's inheritor in Baramati, and the Akali Dal's Harsimrat Kaur of the ruling Badal clan vanquished a competitive cousin in Bathinda to become a Union minister. Realignments in Bihar's caste cauldron yielded a curious result for its political dynasties: both Lalu Prasad's wife and daughter lost, but Dalit leader and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan, by stitching together a last-minute alliance with the BJP, scored a hat trick: both his brother Ram Chandra Paswan and son Chirag Paswan won. (The latter, a failure in Bollywood, appeared in blue denim for his oath-taking in Parliament). In Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party's five seats all went to Mulayam Singh Yadav's family, proving a major exception to the rule that democratic politics is no insurance in protecting family honour. Consider Rahul Gandhi's sadly depleted victory margin in Amethi.
In a country with no dependable social security, family ties are paramount. There is bound to be voter sympathy for widows and fatherless daughters. Gopinath Munde's will certainly inherit his seat. But winning on a sympathy wave once or twice no longer guarantees a career at the electoral box office.