The ruling Badal family in Punjab is united. But the same cannot be said of those in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu
What is common between the Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and Tamil Nadu former Deputy Chief Minister MK StalinIJ They are all waiting to succeed their illustrious parents.
The succession issue has its own problems of adjustment between the older and younger generations. The Congress is a classic example of this. While the Congress president Sonia Gandhi has practically handed over the party to her son Rahul Gandhi, but the transition is not taking place smoothly. Most senior leaders are upset with the style of functioning of Rahul Gandhi as they are apprehensive of their future in the party.
He is impatient to fill up his inner circle with his own coterie. The party would have tolerated this, had he been a vote-catcher. The murmurs from the old guards have been growing since the humiliating defeat in the 2014 lok Sabha poll and the subsequent Assembly polls. “Yeh ladka nahi kar payaga (This boy will not be able to deliver)” is the chorus among the senior leaders, most of whom want Sonia Gandhi to continue till at least until the 2019 lok Sabha poll.
In the bitter succession war going on in Uttar Pradesh, the seniors like Shivpal Yadav, Amar Singh and others would rather have Mulayam Singh Yadav as Chief Minister than his son. Although Mulayam Singh Yadav installed his son as Chief Minister five years ago, but there is fight for money and power from his own family members. The Samajwadi Party patriarch is caught between his younger brother Shivpal Yadav and son Akhilesh Yadav. Some say that Mulayam Singh Yadav’s each decision — from publicly criticising son Akhilesh Yadav and asking him to ‘mend his ways’ to sacking him as the State president — has been carefully calibrated. The father and son now have control of the party and Government.
No one can accuse Mulayam Singh Yadav of not taking care of his clan, as 20 of them are today MPs, MlAs, Zilla Parishad presidents holding powerful positions. He has so far been able to maintain a miraculous balance by deft distribution of Government, party or local body posts.
The senior Yadav has adopted the identity politics as well as the emerging presidential style of image-oriented politics. At another level, he is also working on a grand alliance of socialist and ‘secular’ forces by bringing together parties like Congress, JD(U), JD(S), RlD, RJD and other like-minded parties.
In Tamil Nadu, the DMK, which has been out of power since 2011, was also facing a succession battle in the party chief M Karunanidhi’s family. He has declared his younger son MK Stalin as his political heir. To pave the way, he already expelled his older son and former Union Minister MK Alagiri for anti-party activities in 2013. While he may not be able to bring new voters, but he can retain at least 75 per cent of the core voters. Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa has been in the hospital for more than two-and-a-half months. The State is ruled by her proxy O Panneerselvam. The DMK chief is looking for a day when the AIADMK might split. His daughter Kanimozhi, who is presently a Rajya Sabha member and heads the party’s women wing, may be reconciled to play a second fiddle to her brother Stalin. Kanimozhi’s political ambitions crashed after her alleged involvement in the 2G Spectrum scam and her arrest in 2011.
like Karunanidhi, his long-time friend Parkash Singh Badal too has a good personal image. Despite his age, he has been projected as the chief ministerial candidate in the ensuing Assembly poll. Between Punjab Chief Minister Badal, his son and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, his son-in-law Adesh Pratap Singh Kairon, Sukhbir’s brother-in-law Bikram Singh Majithia and another relative Janmeja Singh Sekhon, the Badal clan has a good share in power. Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Sukhbir Singh Badal’s wife, is a Union Minister.
India is one country where democracy survives with a personality cult, and charismatic leaders have their own fiefdoms. The problem for them is that they have to get elected to retain their hold on power. They go through the motions of facilitating their progeny getting elected. This is indeed the beauty of Indian democracy.
(The writer is a political commentator and a syndicated columnist)