Politics of political families

Dr. S. S. Verma
General elections to constitute the 17th Parliament of Republic India have been declared and results will be declared on 23rd May 2019. In a total of 545 members of parliament, 543 MPs are from single-member constituencies using first-past-the-post voting. The President of India nominates an additional two members from the Anglo-Indian community if he believes the community is under-represented.
Indian democracy said to be the largest democracy of the world in which about 880 million voters (from a population of 1390 million) are going to use their voting power. Doing away with foreign rulers and the king (monarchy) system, people of the country heaved a sigh of great relief to have a government of the people, by the people and for the people. With time, things changed and a large number of national and local political parties have emerged into the political field taking politics as a profession, business and a lucrative career and well respected social status. In 2014 general elections about 8252 candidates contested the elections and the number will definitely increase this time. The figure of candidates will look astonishing if it is counted and reported for all types of elections like assemblies, Zila-parisads, municipalities and panchayts. It is no exaggeration to say that country is almost in an election phase here or there region and for this or that post throughout the year.
As per the information available on internet, in 2019 general election (National level), National Democratic Alliance (NDA) represent about 22 (small and big) political parties including Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), United Progressive Alliance (UPA) also represent about 21 (small and big) political parties including Indian National congress (INC) and Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) represent about 11 political parties. There are about 12 non-alliance political parties contesting elections on their own and a large number of politicians will be contesting these elections independently.
Though the names of contesting candidates from various political parties are not still finally declared but in general or overall no statics of the contesting candidates are always available regarding their family background or their relationship to earlier or existing political family members. It is a general guess that very few contesting candidates irrespective of any political party, are not directly or indirectly in relation (political heirs) to old or existing masters of politics in the country. We can recollect from history that in few first parliamentary elections of the country, many newcomers/ unknown candidates got an opportunity to emerge as politicians of the Indian democracy. But, with time very few new faces/candidates are getting an opportunity to emerge on the local or national political arena even though they put hard work in politics due to strong family affections of political families and their mastery in exploiting political status for the well being of themselves and their near and dear ones.
Moreover, as voters are being influenced easily through money games, contesting elections has become a risky, very costly and corrupt affair, so going away from the reach of a common person. Today’s politicians are more concerned about their own well being than national and social development. Politics of family politics has so much deep rooted in the system that common people cannot think of making politics as a career. Intrusion of family politics in the system to a large extent is making the system more corrupt and is also taking people away from the roots of democracy.
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