New Jharkhand Assembly has 15 dynasts, seven from BJP, rest from Cong-JMM

At least 15 newly elected legislators in the 81-member Jharkhand assembly are dynasts. Of these, seven are from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), six from the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), and two from the Indian National Congress (INC), according to an IndiaSpend analysis of electoral data.

The results of the elections to the Jharkhand assembly were declared on December 23, 2019, and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-Congress-Rashtriya Janata Dal alliance won 47 of 81 seats. The BJP, which was voted out of power, won 25 seats of the 79 seats where it fielded a candidate.

A ‘dynast’ for the purpose of this article refers to any politician whose father or spouse was/is in electoral politics. The dataset does not capture extended family relationships. The figures, therefore, are possibly an underestimate.

Overall, at least 28 of the candidates fielded by prominent political parties belong to political families. Of these, 15 were elected as members of legislative assembly (MLAs), our analysis showed.