With five faces from political clans, BJP’s dynasty barb at Congress blunted in Haryana

Deepender Deswal

Hisar, May 5

The “dynasty” jibe of the BJP, which it used to target the Congress with, seems to have fallen flat in Haryana this time.

With five of the candidates nominated by the BJP out of 10 seats in Haryana being from clans of former political bigwigs, nepotism seems more blatant in the BJP than the Congress, which has three such candidates in the Lok Sabha poll in the state.

The BJP candidate in Hisar, Ranjit Singh, is son of former Deputy PM Devi Lal; in Ambala, the party has fielded a greenhorn Banto Kataria, widow of former MP Rattan Lal Kataria.

In Kurukshetra, the BJP has reposed faith in Naveen Jindal, son of former MP and Haryana minister Om Prakash Jindal. The Gurugram candidate, Rao Inderjit Singh, is carrying forward the legacy of his father Rao Birender Singh. Sirsa candidate Ashok Tanwar is the son-in-law of former Congress leader Lalit Maken who was also the son-in-law of former President Shankar Dayal Sharma.

Meanwhile, three Congress candidates have dynastic roots. Deepender Hooda from Rohtak is the son of former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda; Sirsa candidate Kumari Selja is daughter of former MP Dalbir Singh and Ambala nominee Varun Mulana is the son of former state Congress president Phool Chand Mulana.

Political author Pawan Kumar Bansal said that the BJP in the past elections had unleashed attacks on political dynasties in Haryana. The BJP has now lost the moral high ground to attack its rival political parties or leaders as it has allotted ticket to five such candidates. “The party even borrowed candidates having background of political dynasties from other political parties like the Congress to nominate them in the Lok Sabha poll,” he said.Rajender Sharma, a political expert, said, “Even the BJP doesn’t want to take risks and thus, has borrowed candidates having political background from the Congress like Naveen Jindal, Rao Inderjit Singh and Ashok Tanwar. Earlier, it was Birender Singh whose son Brijendra was fielded from Hisar by the BJP,” he said. He said that even at the national level, this narrative has lost steam for the BJP as it has also obliged and promoted several political dynasties not only within the BJP, but also who joined the BJP from other parties.