From Mamata Banerjee’s show of authority to Mayawati’s sudden turnarounds over their nephews, legacy politics continues to overshadow merit, putting family ties above loyalty and ability. BY KUMKUM CHADHA
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee did right when she made it clear that she is supreme and her’s is the last word in the Trinamool Congress or the TMC: a Party she formed after parting ways with the Congress, nearly three decades ago.
It was in December last year that Banerjee took the unprecedented step of saying: “I am still there. I am the final word”.
Obviously, this was not an off the cuff remark. It was necessary to clear the confusion about a political heir.
It was in 2011 that Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek made a soft entry into politics through the youth wing. His aunt, Mamata Banerjee, facilitated his entry by creating a new platform, Yuva.
It was a parallel organization to the youth wing headed by mass leader, then in the TMC, Suvendhu Adhikari.
Abhishek’s entry caused enough heartburn: it not only undermined Adhikari’s clout and hold but also sent a signal of the bloodline getting precedence over loyalists. It is therefore not without reason that when Adhikari quit the TMC, he had said: “I did not drop in using a parachute nor did I take a lift. I took the stairs, step by step”.
This is clearly not what Abhishek can say about himself.
Within three years of his steering Yuva, he took the plunge in active politics. In 2014, Abhishek contested and won his first election from Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha constituency.
In 2015, when Mamata Banerjee shifted all her belongings, including her treadmill, to her nephew’s residence in New Delhi it signaled that her bloodline will carry forward her political legacy.
That perhaps heralded the advent of Abhishek being a clear number 2 in the Party.
Even though it is not clearly spelt out, the youth wing is seen as a springboard for successors. Remember Congress’s Sanjay Gandhi who too made his debut through the Indian Youth Congress and later rose to be a de facto Prime Minister often overturning decisions that his mother Indira Gandhi took.
While Abhishek could not emulate Sanjay’s heft and style, he surely accelerated his political rise “by taking the lift,” as Adhikari put it, instead of taking the stairs “step by step”.
Abhishek is Mamata Banerjee’s brother’s son. An MBA, from the controversial IIPM, headed by Arindam Chaudhary, Abhishek’s lavish wedding was in stark contrast to his aunt’s hawai chappal austerity.
For the record, IIPM is defunct amid allegations of fraud. As for Mamata Banerjee, her personal style is characterized by a jhola (cotton bag) and trademark hawai or rubber chappals.
The familial ties were soon under a strain with a flip-flop over Abhishek’s position and status in the Party. Compounding the situation was his name being linked to a money laundering case in a coal scam among others.
Last year, Abhishek announced that he would take a “short hiatus” from the Party’s politics. On her part, Mamata Banerjee inducted her loyalists to key posts after the Lok Sabha elections, completely ignoring Abhishek’s recommendations. The distancing was kind of complete. That Mamata Banerjee had to remind her Party cadres about her authority substantiates this.
Irrespective, Banerjee with her I am the final word assertion has done away with all speculation about her political heir.
This is quite like another aunt-nephew story where Bahujan Samaj Party chief, Mayawati, made it clear that there will be no successor in her lifetime.
There is a backstory to this: it is a story about the rise and fall of another nephew; about his waking up one morning and being bereft of what had been bestowed; it is about the whim and fancy of his benefactor. It is about being symbolically crowned and then being dethroned; it is about a smile and a frown; it is about losing favour and the package deal that came with it: the entitlement, the legacy and trappings of political power.
It is the story of Akash Anand whose rise and fall has been a subject of intense debate within the Party.
Once labelled as Mayawati’s political heir, he fell from grace earlier this month after she axed him for a second time within a year.
The BSP has officially stated that Akash was removed from all party posts. It was in 2019 that Akash emerged on the political scene. By 2023, he was appointed the national coordinator: seen as a number 2 kind of a position.
However, his meteoric rise was cut short when ahead of the Lok Sabha polls last year, Mayawati axed him.
In June last year, she reappointed him as national coordinator, only to show him the door in less than a year. Mayawati’s angst: Akash is selfish, arrogant and under the influence of his father-in-law Ashok Siddharth.
Mayawati accused Ashok Siddharth of creating divisions within the Party aimed at weakening it. What irked Mayawati was Siddhartha’s influence over Akash which in her view led to his wavering political approach: “He not only damaged the BSP but also derailed Akash’s political career”, Mayawati said.
Out in the cold, Akash Anand was faced with a what next dilemma, amid reports of the Congress inviting him to join.
Aunts and nephews apart, this narrative is about nepotism and legacy. It is, to borrow Adhikari’s phrase, about parachuting or taking the lift rather than the stairs, step by step. It is about the rot in our political system: about how deeply the legacy quotient is entrenched in the system; about its strong roots and about it dominating the inner dynamics of a particular party.
This is not about the Trinamool Congress or the Bahujan Samaj Party; neither is it about Mamata Banerjee or Mayawati or about women leaders often charged with being erratic and whimsical. This is about the malaise which is spread across political parties.
The Congress, it is well known, is gripped by the son syndrome, so to speak. Party patriarch Mrs Sonia Gandhi, would do what it takes to push ahead Rahul Gandhi.
As for the BJP while Prime Minister Narendra Modi has no family or nephews to push, there are many within the BJP who are guilty of nepotism. For starters, Union Minister Amit Shah’s son Jay’s meteoric rise from a businessman to Chairman of the International Cricket Council is there for everyone to see.
In other parties too, including the Samajwadi Party, its Chief Akhilesh is a product of nepotism. Or Tejashwi Yadav, who served two terms as Bihar’s Deputy Chief Minister.
Akhilesh Yadav is Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav’s son. His wife Dimple is an MP.
Tejashwi Yadav is Lalu Prasad Yadav’s son. Yadav senior has served as MLA, MP, Union Minister and Bihar’s Chief Minister. He was later convicted in a fodder scam and put behind bars.
Down south, the list is equally revealing. If the DMK is a family run party in Tamil Nadu, in Andhra Pradesh, it is Chandrababu Naidu’s family that rules the roost. His son Nara Lokesh is a serving minister in the state ruled by his father.
It is against this backdrop that one would stop and ask: is nepotism justified? Is it fair to deny the deserving and allow parachuting of those who boast of a bloodline? Should privilege outdo merit?
The questions are complex and the answers difficult to find. And till one does, one must learn to live with the grim reality of nepotism and legacy.
