In Haryana, Sonia Gandhi’s Congress party had decided not to allow any new relative of heavyweight leaders to enter the electoral fray. But in Maharashtra, however, Gandhi had to bow to the pressure of heavyweight relatives of some ‘kin contestants’.
In a balancing act after nominating President Pratibha Patil’s son Rajendra Shekhawat (from Amravati constituency), Gandhi on Thursday night cleared the name of family members of two Union ministers — Vilasrao Deshmukh and Sushilkumar Shinde.
In its third list of candidates for state polls, the Congress named Amit Deshmukh (son of Vilasrao Deshmukh) for Latur city seat and Praniti Shinde (Sushilkumar Shinde’s daughter) for Solapur City Central constituencies, respectively.
While these three star-kids were accommodated in the candidate list for the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections, Congress state unit chief Manikrao Thakre couldn’t manage a ticket for his son from the family’s fiefdom of Yavatmal.
According to a general secretary of the party, “this is a usual practice of any political party to balance various power equations in the state”. Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, however, strongly defended Shekhawat’s candidature saying, “it is a democratic right of any person to contest an election. It is inappropriate to drag the President’s name into this issue.”
In the process of fielding Shekhawat, the Congress had sidelined Sunil Deshmukh, a minister under Chavan and a two-time winner from Amravati, in 1999 and 2004. An angry Deshmukh has said he will contest the polls from Amaravati as an independent candidate. While state-level leaders fear Deshmukh can play a spoilsport, party spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan was confident that he would not stage a rebellion. “During election time, there is certain amount of unhappiness among those who are denied tickets. The real Congressmen will not rebel against official candidates,” she said.
Sunil Deshmukh directly attributed the denial of his ticket to the President’s role. “It appears there was a lot of pressure from the Rashtrapati Bhavan,” he said. Shekhawat’s detractors also allege that even before a formal announcement for his candidature was made, Amravati was flooded with hoardings of Shekhawat saying, “ticket is ensured, victory is ensured too”.
Meanwhile, in Haryana, the Congress managed to put its foot down on similar requests from heavyweight leaders to accommodate their kin. Union minister Selja was trying to secure a ticket for her cousin, Jagannath, from Sirsa. But the seat was given to an old-hand, Lachman Das Arora. Former deputy chief minister Chander Mohan (who had changed his name to Chand Mohammad to marry Anuradha Bali) sought the Kalka ticket. That, too, was denied.
Party insiders said while other leaders have proven their mettle, state unit chief Manikrao Thackeray is not perceived as a heavyweight leader by the party high command and so his pressure to accommodate his son fell into deaf ears. He had lost his Yavatmal seat during the 2004 assembly election and subsequently accommodated in the Legislative Council.
