BENGALURU : In Karnataka, it is ‘family politics’, or a family enterprise. At a rough count, there are more than 150 members of the Assembly, Council, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha whose family members are also politicians. These include politicians who are descendants of politicians, meaning they are dynasts.
Over 40 per cent of all elected representatives — right from MPs and MLAs to members of zilla panchayats and civic bodies — belong to one political family or the other.While the JDS may be leading, the BJP and Congress are not too far behind. In the Congress, former CM Siddaramaiah and his son Dr Yatheendra are both MLAs.
While Ramalinga Reddy and his daughter Soumya, father and son Prakash and Ganesh Hukkeri and Ramesh Jarkiholi and his two brothers Satish and Balachandra are all MLAs, Mallikarjun Kharge is MP Rajya Sabha while son Priyank Kharge is an MLA.
While former CM Dharam Singh’s son Ajay Singh is an MLA, his brother Vijay Singh is an MLC. KPCC president D K Shivakumar is an MLA while brother D K Suresh is an MP. The BJP, which raises the
bogey of political dynasties during poll campaigns, too has its share of dynasts. CM B S Yediyurappa’s son Raghavendra is an MP while daughter Aruna is president of Veerashaiva Mahasabha Women’s wing, and other son Vijayendra is vice-president of the State BJP unit.
While Dr Umesh Jadhav and son Dr Avinash Jadhav are MP and MLA, respectively, Jagadish Shettar is an MLA while his brother is an MLC. Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s father was a former CM, MLAs Raghu and Arvind Limbavali are brothers-in-law, Umesh Katti is an MLA while brother Ramesh Katti is former MP, C M Udasi is an MLA while son Shivakumar Udasi is an MP, and Ravi Subramanya is Basavanagudi MLA while nephew Tejasvi Surya is Bangalore South MP.
There are examples where politics is thicker than blood. Former CM Bangarappa’s warring sons Kumar Bangarappa is a BJP MLA while Madhuchandra of JDS is a former MLA. The Reddy troika — Somashekar, Karunakar and Janardhan — and B Sreeramulu and his family including sister J Shanta and uncle Sanna Fakeerappa are other examples.
In the JDS, the third generation has made a political debut. JDS patriarch H D Deve Gowda is Rajya Sabha MP and grandson Prajwal Revanna is Lok Sabha MP. Gowda’s sons H D Kumaraswamy and H D Revanna and daughter-in-law Anita Kumaraswamy are MLAs, Revanna’s father-in-law D C Thammanna is an MLA, while his wife Bhavani is a ZP level politician.
There are brothers like Jarkiholis or spouses like the Jolles. Some may make an entry because the party has chosen them because of the sympathy factor. In the recent Sira bypolls, JDS had fielded Ammajamma, wife of late MLA B Sathyanarayana. Belonging to a political family gives candidates better access to allies and resources, say political analysts.
“For successful bandwidth, one needs family name, visibility and the role of family also becomes important. While family names do give a head start, can it sustain them in the long run is a moot question. It would be unfair to name only political dynasties.
This is linked to a larger reality in India where this trend is seen in businesses and other fields too. In politics, it is more visible,” said Prof Sandeep Shastri, pro VC, Jain (deemed-to-be) University. “It is an unhealthy development in a democracy and should be discouraged,” said political analyst B S Murthy.