Her Mother’s Daughter
Late Sushma Swaraj’s daughter Bansuri got to know of her candidature from the New Delhi Lok Sabha seat while watching the evening news on television. In conversation with NewsX, she revealed that until then she had no idea the party was considering her as a candidate, though she had been active in party work, especially as the co-convenor of the BJP’s legal cell. Given the fact that a sitting BJP MP’s ticket was cut to accommodate her, one of the first things young Bansuri did when she got the news was to call on Meenakshi Lekhi and seek her blessings. “In our party, tickets are not cut but they are given,” she explained with a lawyer’s finesse. A barrister at law, Bansuri has been practising law for the past 15 years. But now it’s time for her political debut. And the feisty young candidate is already making waves in the media, one of the reasons being her articulation, especially in fluent Hindi. When asked whether the media was right in calling her the Shashi Tharoor of Hindi language, she laughed and said I would rather be called the Sushma Swaraj of Hindi language. Well, watch this space as this is one candidate that is going to go places.
The Kharge Clan
Although AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge has indicated that he is not interested in contesting the Lok Sabha elections from his constituency Kalaburagi in Karnataka, Congress sources claim that in all probability the seat will go to his son-in-law, Radhakrishna Dodmani. If given a ticket, this will be Dodmani’s first electoral tryst, though he has been actively helping his father-in-law manage the constituency. However, given the fact that Kharge’s son Priyank, a third-term MLA is currently a minister in the Congress-led government in the state, Dodmani will be the third member of the family to be in active politics. None of this is out of context, as Rahul Gandhi once said when asked to comment on dynastic politics had commented that this is the way India runs. So is the Congress replacing—or at best supplementing—one dynasty with another?
The BJP’s second List
The BJP’s second list had its share of news value with both Nitin Gadkari and Piyush Goyal making it from Maharashtra. Given the inner dynamics of the BJP there were those who were wondering if Gadkari would get a ticket. That speculation has since been quashed. In fact, given that Rajnath Singh too was given a ticket, there seems to be a continuity with the Old Guard in Narendra Modi’s BJP, as he tries to carve his own team. Piyush Goyal took to his candidature with his customary aplomb, embarking on a local Metro ride soon after his name was announced. His candidature (from North Mumbai) is also in keeping with the Prime Minister wanting to promote a second rung leadership that had hitherto come in through the Rajya Sabha route. This includes Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Bhupendra Yadav and Mansukh Mandaviya amongst others. In fact, one can see the early markings in the blueprint for Modi 3.0 with these candidatures.