BHOPAL: The recently concluded local body polls in Madhya Pradesh have given a lie to BJP chief J P Nadda’s assertion about ‘dynastic politics.’ Many kinfolk of the existing and former lawmakers/ministers of the party have won in the Zila and Janpad panchayat chairperson-vice-chairperson polls as well as mayoral elections in the state.
The long list of leaders’ kin winning in the polls, either as party’s official candidates or as BJP-supported candidates, includes at least two newly elected mayors. In Khandwa, the BJP candidate Amrita Yadav is the daughter-in-law of three-time ex-MLA Hukumchand Yadav and wife of Amar Yadav, the chairperson in the outgoing Khandwa Municipal Corporation.
In Satna of Vindhya region, the winning mayor candidate Yogesh Tamrakar (who defeated local Congress MLA Siddharth Kushwah) is the son of veteran RSS leader Shankar Prasad Tamrakar. In Sagar, the new mayor Sangita Tiwari is the wife of Sushil Tiwari, who joined the BJP, just before the 2018 assembly elections. Sushil is considered close to CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s loyalist MP minister Bhupendra Singh.
The recent 51 Zila Panchayat chairperson and vice chairperson polls too weren’t without BJP leaders’ family members. In Tikamgarh district, the party-backed Umita Singh, who is the wife of local MLA Rahul Singh Lodhi (Rahul is ex-CM Uma Bharti’s nephew) won the district panchayat chairperson polls unopposed. In the adjoining Sagar district, Hira Singh Rajput (brother of Jyotiraditya Scindia loyalist minister Govind Singh Rajput) won the district panchayat chairperson polls unopposed as a BJP-backed candidate.
State BJP secretary Rajneesh Agrawal said the panchayat polls were not contested on the official party symbol. “The number of party-supported winning candidates who were actually kin of party leaders (including current and former lawmakers and ministers) is in single digits only,” said Agrawal.