New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly attacked the Congress and different regional events for his or her dynastic politics, however now the BJP is grappling with the problem of sticking to its coverage of ‘one household, one ticket’ whereas additionally retaining political households comfortable in Himachal Pradesh, which works to polls on 12 November.
Whereas the celebration has been cautious to not area a couple of member from a household, it appears to have come across a compromise system of types. In some cases the place it has not given a ticket to a sitting MLA to keep away from anti-incumbency, it has provided one to their son, daughter, or spouse to forestall revolt.
The BJP launched its first record of 62 candidates on October 19, and the remining six the subsequent day. Whereas the celebration has accommodated a number of relations of established leaders, it has not named two-time Himachal chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, who’s the daddy of Union minister Anurag Thakur.
“Within the hill state, the constituency sizes are small. Final time Prem Kumar Dhumal misplaced solely by 3,000 votes and Suresh Bhardwaj received by lower than 1,000 votes. This is the reason the celebration has to accommodate the family members of leaders the place now we have gotten suggestions of anti-incumbency towards the sitting MLA,” a vice-president of the Himachal BJP mentioned, asking to not be named.
He added that winnability is the one standards in an election. “It isn’t the time for experiments, so in a number of locations relations of the leaders have been fielded, however now we have held up our rule of ‘one household, one ticket’, not like Congress.”
Political observers agree that the BJP can not afford to have highly effective political households in a huff.
“No celebration needs to take the chance of denying a ticket to a dynasty politician as a result of it provides them an edge in profitable and politics is simply about profitable, at any value,” mentioned Prof Ramesh Kumar of Himachal Pradesh College, including that making a notion and implementing it on the bottom are two various things.
“Dynasty politics originated in Congress and regional political events however BJP has adopted it wholeheartedly,” Kumar claimed.
Regardless of the celebration’s finest efforts to stroll the tightrope, nevertheless, precarious conditions have arisen in some constituencies.
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A sticky scenario
Two scions of the erstwhile royal household of Kullu have given the BJP some motive to sweat. Whereas the celebration had initially nominated former state celebration president Maheshwar Singh from the Kullu Sadar seat, it ended up dropping him earlier this week.
The explanation reportedly was that Maheshwar couldn’t persuade his son Hiteshwar, who had additionally hoped for a BJP ticket, to withdraw his nomination as an impartial candidate from the Banjar seat. Each father and son then filed their nominations as impartial candidates.
Maheshwar Singh lastly agreed to withdraw his nomination papers Friday, however not earlier than BJP president J.P Nadda needed to step in. Reportedly, a celebration chopper was despatched to Kullu Thursday to convey the patriarch to Shimla for the assembly.
Nonetheless, it’s unlikely that Hiteshwar will comply with in his father’s footsteps. His spouse Vibha Singh, a Kullu zilla parishad member, met the CM Jairam Thakur on behalf of her husband this week and mentioned that the folks of Banjar had waited for Hiteshwar to contest for “13 years” and he is not going to again down.
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Hits and misses for ladies
One other attention-grabbing dynasty contest is happening within the household of state jal shakti minister Mahender Singh Thakur, who’s the incumbent legislator from Dharmapur and has received seven elections from the seat.
This time, the BJP has fielded his son Rajat Thakur, which led to a short revolt throughout the household.
When the choice was introduced, Mahendra Singh’s daughter Vandana Guleria resigned from her publish of basic secretary of the BJP Mahila Morcha on October 19 and tweeted — “Parivarvad mein har bar betiyon ki hello bali kyun li jati hai (Why is it that in household politics, it’s the daughter that’s at all times sacrificed).” Since then, although, she appears to have come round.
In two different instances, wives have changed husbands. The BJP has fielded Maya Sharma, spouse of former MLA and present BJP district president Baldev Sharma, from Barsar.
Baldev is a three-time MLA however misplaced the earlier two meeting elections. BJP hopes his spouse, who was the president of the district BJP Mahila Morcha twice and is presently a member of the Mahila Morcha state government group, will be capable to unseat the Congress sitting MLA, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal.
Within the second case, Neelam Nayyar, spouse of sitting BJP MLA Pawan Nayyar was given the ticket from Chamba.
The celebration had initially named Indira Kapoor when the record of candidates was launched however modified it to Neelam, reportedly resulting from concern of revolt from the incumbent MLA and an previous corruption case towards Kapoor.
Of sons and brothers
One of the controversial candidates that the BJP is fielding is sitting MLA Anil Sharma, son of the late former Union minister Sukh Ram, from Mandi Sadar. He has held this seat since 2007. Notably, he was with the Congress until a shift of allegiance to the BJP previous to the 2017 meeting elections. He acquired the ticket regardless of being marred by allegations of disloyalty.
He had reportedly met Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and reportedly sought a ticket for himself and his son, Aashray Sharma, who give up the Congress earlier this month, for the upcoming polls and determined to stay to the BJP when no assurances got here his manner.
He was additionally dropped from the cupboard in 2019 after refusing to marketing campaign for the BJP candidate who was pitted towards his son, then a Congress candidate, from Mandi.
In the meantime, BJP chief Praveen Sharma has filed his nomination from Mandi as an impartial candidate, accusing the management of selling household politics towards the celebration’s ideology.
Among the many different political scions that the celebration has nominated is Anil Dhiman, son of the late former training minister Ishwar Dass Dhiman, from Bhoranj.
His father received six meeting elections till his dying in 2016. The celebration denied a ticket to Anil after his father’s dying however this time the youthful Dhiman threatened to contest independently if the BJP didn’t area him.
Consequently, sitting MLA Kamesh Kumari was denied a ticket to accommodate him.
Regardless of his loss in 2017, BJP has reposed religion in Rajesh Kashyap, brother of two-time MP from Shimla, Virendra Kashyap.
Kashyap will as soon as once more be battling it out in Solan out towards his father-in-law, Dhani Ram Shandil, the incumbent Congress legislator.
In Hamirpur, the celebration has given the ticket to Narendra Thakur, son of late Thakur Jagdev Chand, five-time MLA.
Govind Singh Thakur, son of former minister Kunj Lal Thakur will probably be as soon as once more contesting from Manali, a seat he has held since 2007.
Chetan Bragta, a former convenor of the BJP IT cell and son of late MLA and former agriculture minister Narinder Bragta has been declared because the candidate from Jubbal-Kotkhai.
This comes after Chetan was expelled final 12 months when he contested as an impartial candidate from the seat in a by-election mandated by the dying of his father, the sitting MLA. The seat was snatched by the Congress’ personal dynast Rohit Thakur.
Chetan Bragta was allegedly denied a ticket final 12 months to dissuade dynasty politics, however this time the BJP appears to have relaxed its stance.
Dynasts galore in Congress record
Pratibha Singh, spouse of late CM Virbhadra Singh, is president of the Himachal Congress unit. Their son Vikramaditya Singh, the incumbent MLA from Shimla rural, is contesting once more from the constituency.
Rohit Thakur, chief whip within the state authorities and grandson of veteran Congress chief late Thakur Ram Lal, is contesting from Jubbal-Kotkhai. He received the seat throughout the by-election in 2021.
Seasoned Congress chief and former well being and household welfare minister Kaul Singh Thakur is contesting from Darang and his daughter Champa Thakur will, as soon as once more, go up towards Anil Sharma in Mandi Sadar.
Congress has fielded quite a few different candidates from political households too, together with Ajay Mahajan from Nurpur (son of late Sat Mahajan), Bhawani Pathania from Fatehpur (son of late Sujan Singh Pathania), Raghuveer Bali from Nagrota Bagwan (son of late G.S. Bali), Sudhir Sharma from Dharamshala (son of late Pandit Santram), Ashish Butail from Palampur (son of BBL Butail), Ram Kumar Chaudhary from Doon (son of late Lajja Ram), Vinod Sultanpuri from Kasauli (son of late KD Sultanpuri), Harshvardhan Chauhan from Shillai (son of Guman Singh Chauhan), Yadvinder Goma from Jaisinghpur (son of Milkhi Ram Goma), and Vinay Kumar from Renuka (son of Dr Prem Singh).
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)
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