Emboldened with the decision to dissuade the family and relatives of party leaders, MPs and MLAs in the 27 zilla parishad and 10 municipal corporation elections, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wants to adopt the same rule in the 2014 assembly elections in Maharashtra.
BJP’s ban on promoting family members in electoral politics has put the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in a quandary.
A senior NCP cabinet minister, on condition of anonymity, admitted: “There is immense discontent among our workers when they see leaders promoting their spouses and children when it comes to contesting elections. The worker begins to wonder why should be work hard for just one family.”
State BJP chief Sudhir Mungantiwar, who was instrumental in taking this decision against family promotion in electoral politics, said: “The party believes tickets to candidates in the assembly and parliament elections should be based on merit and not a family tag.”
While admitting that actual implementation of the decision will be a tightrope walk, the BJP leadership has already sent the message loud and clear down the rank and file.
But, the BJP clarified that if the family member or relative is already a party worker who has proved his mettle in electoral politics, he can be considered for the contest.
Citing an example, a senior BJP leader, requesting anonymity, said: “In the Mumbai civic elections, there was no issue when a ticket was given to Vinod Shelar, brother of sitting corporator Ashish Shelar because everybody knows Vinod as a rank and file worker. Moreover, Ashish himself did not contest the civic polls and instead fielded a BJP member from his area, which was highly lauded.”
Similarly, in the state assembly elections, there is no ambiguity about Pankaja Munde contesting the polls from Parli. Pankaja, who is a sitting MLA in the assembly is the daughter of BJP leader and deputy leader of Lok Sabha Gopinath Munde.
The party’s aversion to promoting family politics is only got those seeking a direct entry without doing any party work.
BJP spokesperson Madhav Bhandari said: “In a cadre-based party, such as BJP, it surely works when you take a tough decision against promoting dynasty culture. At the grassroots, the individuals feel they have a worth in the organisation.”
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