The fault lines in political succession blueprints
Tejaswi is one of the few political dynasts who’ve added value to inherited positions
When patriarchs die, grow old or, because they are no longer physically present at the heart of the action, exercise remote control in the manner of the incarcerated Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief, Lalu Yadav, political dynasties develop fissures. Or fall apart. Symptomatic of such a fissure is the reported rift between Lalu’s sons, Tejaswi and Tej Pratap Yadav. The former was deputy chief minister in the Nitish Kumar government before the collapse of the grand alliance. The latter was health minister. The rumblings in the larger Lalu clan are reminiscent of the discord in Jat stalwart Devi Lal’s family. His other sons, Ranjit Singh and Pratap Singh, were thorns in the side of his heir and elder son, OP Chautala. Among the Lalu kinfolk, Tej Pratap can at best be what Ranjit Singh was in the Devi Lal family — a peripheral player. The other parallel is in the Samajwadi Party (SP) in which Akhilesh Yadav beat back his uncle, Shivpal Yadav’s challenge. His stint as Uttar Pradesh chief minister gave him a platform to stand taller than the politically wilier Shivpal, whose claims to hierarchy rested on his loyalty to his brother (and Akhilesh’s father), Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Regional parties are like tightly held family companies where equity is bequeathed to the favourite child. That has happened in the case of MK Stalin, whose succession was smooth primarily because his elder brother and rival, MK Azhagiri was ousted from the DMK when their father and long time DMK chief, M Karunanidhi, was alive. But the jury is still out on whether Stalin’s primacy is a settled issue, given his sidelined elder brother’s popularity in Tamil Nadu’s southern districts. Historically, successors who are able to augment what they have grabbed or inherited get to control regional outfits. Illustrative of that is the rise of Stalin, Tejaswi and Chandrababu. They haven’t just inherited; they’ve added value to the positions they hold.