Regional political entities across states, where greedy satraps called the shots for many years, are in for a major re-configuration. The recent set of assembly elections and the failures for the satraps are acting as a prompter for a well-deserved rejig. Mamata Banerjee, who challenged the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi full throttle for years, has fallen flat – and her Trinamool Congress is splitting and decimating itself like ninepins. Banerjee and her clan are speechless. In Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena is facing a similar predicament, with its MPs planning to desert the ship and join hands with others, possibly ending up in the BJP-NDA camp. In Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party of Akhilesh Yadav, crafted by his seasoned father Mulayam Singh, is facing the prospect of a vertical split, and chances are that the dissidents would end up in the saffron camp. Very likely, the BJP is behind the vertical splits in several political entities. Tamil Nadu, which saw the abrupt rise of TVK, at the behest of popular actor Joseph Vijay, is seeing the likely disintegration of the traditional Dravidian parties– the AIADMK and possibly the DMK too. The AIADMK was almost rudderless after charismatic J Jayalalithaa passed away, without leaving an able successor to lead the party. DMK, where father Stalin is ailing and in a mood to hand over the baton to his son Udayanidhi, might end up with such a fate as many in the party are not happy with the succession plan.
A similar succession plan charted out by Uddhav Thackery for the Shiv Sena, by having his son, former minister Aditya, at the party’s head is causing heartburns for senior Sena leaders. Mulayam Singh who effortlessly hoisted his son Akhilesh Yadav at the head of the party and government had got away with his act. There was no open resentment to this within the party, which was then a powerful entity. Now that the SP is languishing in the sidelines, with the BJP running the state government for consecutive terms, those that are opposed to the family supremacy in the party are biding their time. Lalu Prasad Yadav, who first put his wife into the CM saddle and then handed over leadership to his two sons, lost his upper hand in Bihar politics. Crafty Nitish Kumar stole the wind out of Lalu’s sails. The Abdullahs in Kashmir, though they faced odds, are still in circulation. But, the architect of Telangana State, K Chandrashekar Rao who won power for two terms has been sidelined by a resurgent Congress party in Telangana – and he along with his family clan have been driven out of power by people’s power. However, in adjoining Andhra Pradesh, chief minister Chandrababu Naidu and son Lokesh are hectoring the scene now.
Hints, overall, are that dynastic politics has its limitations – this, with a rider that the Nehru family remains an exception. The sacrifices of the family for the nation through four generations, including assassinations of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, are fresh in people’s memory. The family, it is well acknowledged, is the glue that binds the party together.
