Daughters have silently started emerging as heir apparent to their illustrious fathers, and the daughters' brigade is giving famous sons a close race.
The breakaway Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has witnessed emergence of two daughters.
Supriya Sule, 41, may currently be maintaining a low profile after the alleged involvement of her husband, Sadanand Sule, in the Indian Premier League (IPL) controversy.
But there is no denying the fact that she has been groomed by father Sharad Pawar as his heir apparent whenever he quits politics.
Sources in the NCP say it has been made clear that while cousin Ajit Pawar, the incumbent Maharashtra deputy chief minister, will concentrate on Maharashtra, Supriya's focus will be on national politics. She is already a member of the NCP Working Committee, the apex decision making body of the party.
Agatha Sangma, 30, has already overtaken Supriya Sule in a way by becoming the junior federal minister for rural development. Daughter of former Lok Sabha speaker and NCP general secretary Purno A Sangma, Agatha is also a member of the NCP Working Committee and is ready to inherit her father's legacy as the face of the northeast in mainstream national politics.
Interestingly, the Congress party is not far behind the NCP in giving daughters their due. They have in their ranks seven daughters who have already inherited the political legacies of their illustrious fathers.
Leading the pack is Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, 65, who is widely recognised as the heir of Babu Jagjiwan Ram, the former deputy prime minister of the country.
Cabinet rank
Kumari Selja, 48, is the daughter of late Choudhry Dalbir Singh, a federal minister in the Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi governments. She currently holds a cabinet rank in the Manmohan Singh government as the Minister for Tourism and Housing. She is a fourth-term Member of Parliament and had become a junior federal minister in 1992 itself in the P. V. Narasimha Rao government.
Like Meira Kumar, she too is a Dalit (lower-caste Hindu) woman face of the Congress party and is widely seen as the perfect future counter to the Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati in the Hindi heartland.
Others representing their famous fathers include Shruti Choudhry, 35 — who also carries her mother's legacy. Shruti is the daughter of former Haryana ministers Late Sudender Singh and his wife Kiran Choudhry, but is widely seen as having inherited the legacy of her illustrious grandfather Choudhry Bansi Lal who served as a federal minister and as Haryana chief minister during his lifetime.
Priya Dutt, 44, had emerged heir apparent to her father Sunil Dutt during his own lifetime as she was actively associated with his social work even before Dutt joined politics. Naturally, the Congress party opted to nominate Priya from his Lok Sabha constituency after he died.
Interestingly, while elder brother Sanjay Dutt, a popular film star like their parents Sunil and Nargis Dutt, has also been dabbling in politics off and on, he has never been seen as Sunil Dutt's successor.
Another first time parliamentarian, Jyoti Mirdha, 38, a qualified doctor, left her flourishing medical practice to merely keep the political legacy of her late father Ram Prakash Mirdha, a former federal minister, alive.
Mausam Noor, 38, is another first time parliamentarian. She has emerged as the real successor to West Bengal heavyweight and former federal minister A. B. A. Ghani Khan Choudhury, although she is a niece of the legendary leader and not his own daughter.
Rajkumari Ratna Singh, 51, did not have to seek a ticket from the Congress party. The party requested her to contest the elections since she alone could ensure another seat from tough Uttar Pradesh state. Daughter of Raja Dinesh Singh, who served as a powerful foreign minister during Indira Gandhi's regime, Ratna has been active in politics since 1991 and this is her third term as a parliamentarian.
The current Lok Sabha has another famous daughter of another famous political family — Yashodhara Raje Scindia. The youngest daughter of the last Gwalior emperor Jiwaji Rao Scindia and Rajmata Vijaya Raje Scindia, Yashodhara served two terms in the Madhya Pradesh state legislative assembly and was the cabinet minister in the state before being asked by her Bharatiya Janata Party leadership to contest a Lok Sabha by-election in 2007, in which she emerged winner and retained her Gwalior seat without ado in 2009.
Real inheritor
Yashodhra's elder sister, Vasundhara Raje Scindia, is currently a general secretary of the BJP. She has served as a federal minister and as chief minister of Rajasthan. Vasundhara is seen as the real inheritor of their mother Vijaya Raje Scindia's political legacy.
Kanimozhi, 43, is daughter of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) supremo M. Karunanidhi. Unlike her half brothers M.K. Stalin and M.K. Alagiri, the poet daughter of the incumbent Tamil Nadu chief minister was accepted as the intellectual heir apparent of Karunanidhi, a poet and writer before he joined politics.
Although Alagiri is a cabinet minister at the centre, it is Kanimozhi, a member of the Rajya Sabha, who is seen as the DMK's face in national politics.
Together, all these second generation women politicians represent a different class. They are educated, cultured, polished and serious about working for the people since they cannot afford to let down the famous legacies of their fathers.
First family daughters : Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi, the only child of Jawaharlal Nehru and Kamala Nehru, had become active in politics since 1941 and served as unofficial personal assistant to her father while he was the prime minister, gaining influence and stature during her father's lifetime.
Indira became a Rajya Sabha member after Nehru died in 1964 and served as a cabinet minister in the Lal Bahadur Shastri government. Within two years, she became the third prime minister of the country in 1966 after Shastri died, and served as prime minister for a total of 5813 days, becoming the first and until now the only woman prime minister of India and the longest-serving woman premier in the world.
While Indira inherited Nehru's legacy, she carried it to a greater height, ensuring the family's political legacy does not end with her by first initiating younger son Sanjay Gandhi into politics and then virtually forcing elder son Rajiv to join politics after Sanjay's death. Ultimately, Rajiv succeeded her as the prime minister after Indira was assassinated in 1984. And the family continues to rule the roost with Rajiv's widow Sonia Gandhi as the president of the Congress party and their son Rahul Gandhi waiting in the wings to become the next prime minister of the country.
Vijay Lakshmi Nehru
The credit for being the first daughter of an illustrious father in India to rise in politics goes to Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit. Daughter of Motilal Nehru, she followed her father and elder brother Jawaharlal to become an active member of the Congress party, was a cabinet minister in the provisional government under the colonial British rule in 1937 and was elected as a member of the Constituent Assembly. She was the first woman cabinet minister of the country.
Once Jawaharlal Nehru became prime minister upon India's independence in 1947, Pandit quietly moved away to ensure she does not come in the way of her brother. She served as India's ambassador and high commissioner in various countries from 1947 to 1961. In between she became the first woman president of the Untied Nations General Assembly in 1953, served as governor of Maharashtra before contesting the Phulpur seat of Uttar Pradesh in 1964, which had fallen vacant upon death of Jawaharlal Nehru.
She ultimately quit active politics in 1968 after her relationship with her niece India Gandhi, who had emerged as Nehru's successor and had become the third prime minister of the country, soured.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra
It is not the question of if Priyanka will join politics, but when will she? It is generally understood that she will take over reigns of the party from mother Sonia but only after Rahul becomes the prime minister to ensure that Rahul is not bothered with the task of looking after the party.
Priyanka has already cut her teeth in politics as campaign managers of mother Sonia and brother Rahul and is widely perceived as a better orator and with an acute sense of politics. She is probably the most powerful daughter of a political family and her formal entry into politics is widely awaited.
0 comments:
Post a Comment