Bihar Elections : All in the family — sons, daughters, brothers, in-laws, in poll alliances

RJD leader and former deputy chief minister of Bihar Tejashwi Prasad Yadav is leading from Raghopur constituency against the BJP’s Satish Kumar.

As the polls in Bihar draw near, all eyes are on RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and LJP chief Chirag Paswan, two of the state's foremost political scions who have the task of taking ahead the political legacy of their fathers. Tejashwi’s father and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav is serving a jail term in a graft case while Chirag’s father Ram Vilas Paswan passed away recently.

But the Bihar election is not just about these two political heirs alone. Many other sons, daughters, wives and relatives of political leaders, including some prominent ones, are trying their luck in the political cauldron of caste alliances that is Bihar. Leaders across political parties have passed on their batons to their scions in the polls that will elect a new 243-member assembly in Bihar. The elections in the state will be held in 3 phases on October 28, November 3 and November 7. Counting of votes will be held on November 10.

Listen | An overview of the battleground: Bihar Elections 2020 will be the first major elections in the COVID-19 pandemic

Moneycontrol compiles a list:

Tejaswhi and Tej: The Yadav scions

Tejashwi Yadav is the chief ministerial face of the Grand Alliance (Mahagathbandhan) comprising RJD, Congress and the Left parties. The alliance is challenging the ruling NDA alliance led by chief minister Nitish Kumar’s JD (U) in the three-phase polls.

Tejashwi Yadav, 31, the former deputy CM contesting from the high-profile Raghopur seat, is drawing huge crowds lately. So much so that RJD leader Manoj Jha quipped earlier this week that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was prompted to address the nation on October 20 after watching the crowds at Tejashwi’s rallies.

The Yadav-dominated Raghopur seat was represented by Tejashwi’s father Lalu Yadav twice. Tejashwi won the seat in 2015 by defeating Satish Kumar of the BJP, who had defeated Tejashwi's mother Rabri Devi from the same seat in 2010. Satish Kumar lost to Tejashwi when the BJP was fighting alone and Tejashwi was a candidate of the Grand Alliance comprising RJD, JD(U) and the Congress. This year, the combinations have changed. The ruling JD (U) is now fighting in alliance with the BJP.

In Hasanpur, the elder Yadav scion Tej Pratap will face JD (U) MLA Raj Kumar Ray. “This is Laluji's bastion, that is why I want to take my father’s mission ahead here,” Tej told reporters when asked about his choice of the Hasanpur seat.

Sudhakar Singh, son of RJD state chief Jagadanand Singh is contesting the elections from Ramgarh, which used to be his father’s pocket borough. Similarly, Rahul Tiwari contesting from Shahpur in Buxar is the son of RJD state vice president and former MP Shivnand Tiwari.

Former Union Minister Jai Prakash Singh Yadav’s daughter Divya Prakash is contesting from Tarapur and her brother Vijay Prakash Yadav is contesting from the Jamui seat. Also, Chetan Anand, son of former MP Anand Mohan Singh, has been fielded by the RJD from Sheohar. Singh is serving a life sentence for murder and his wife Lovely Anand is also a former MP.

Rishi Singh, son of former MP Kanti Singh, is contesting on a RJD ticket from the Obra seat while former MLA Raja Ballabh Yadav’s wife Vibha is contesting from Navinagar. Also, absconding RJD MLA Arun Yadav’s wife Kiran Devi is contesting from Sandesh.

“It is true that families enjoy popular support. Parties do not want to put losing candidates in the fray,” said an RJD leader who did not want to be named.

Chirag Paswan

For Chirag Paswan, the 37-year-old Lok Sabha MP from Jamui, it is a make-or-break situation for more reasons than one. Chirag, who has tried his hand at films, too, is trying to take his late father Ram Vilas Paswan’s legacy forward in the political wilderness when he has decided to contest the elections alone.

Chirag’s Lok Janshakti Party, founded by his father in 2000, has decided to field candidates against Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) and not against the BJP. Many believe that by contesting 140-odd seats against JD (U), the LJP will help in dividing JD(U) votes and benefit the BJP. But this theory has been rubbished by BJP leaders who have openly disowned Chirag, accusing him of creating confusion.

Luv Sinha and Subhashini Yadav

The Congress party, which is part of the Grand Alliance in the state, has fielded former actor and parliamentarian Shatrughan Sinha’s son Luv Sinha from the Bankipore seat and veteran socialist leader Sharad Yadav’s daughter Subhashini Yadav from Bihariganj.

Shatrughan Sinha is a two-time BJP member of Lok Sabha (2009–2014, 2014–2019) from Patna Sahib. He was a Union Cabinet Minister of Health and Family Welfare and Shipping in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. He joined the Congress in 2019. His wife and actor-turned-politician Poonam Sinha unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha elections on a Samajwadi Party (SP) ticket from Lucknow in 2019.

“Once again, sharing another impactful & meaningful tweet by the responsible, sensible, confident, our own 'Bihar Putra' (Luv Sinha). He speaks his mind with clarity & conviction,” Sinha said in support of his son on October 23.

In Bankipore, which goes to the polls in the second phase on November 3, Luv is pitted against BJP's three-time MLA Nitin Navin who has been winning the seat since 2005. Nitin’s father Navan Kishor Prasad Sinha held the seat from 1995 for the BJP.

Luv, however, said there was no nepotism in his career choice. “Had there been nepotism, he would have contested Lok Sabha elections and not the Assembly,” he said. Luv’s father Shatrughan had contested and lost the Patna Sahib Lok Sabha seat in 2019 on a Congress ticket.

Subhashini’s father Sharad Yadav, 75, is a product of the JP movement and had famously won the Jabalpur by-poll as joint Opposition candidate in 1974, a development which many considered a turning point in Indian politics as the win marked the beginning of what they called “anti-Congressism” era. A seven-time Lok Sabha and three-time Rajya Sabha MP, Sharad Yadav was in the JD(U) in 2015 when it won the Bihar polls in alliance with the RJD and the Congress. Two years later, he quit the JD(U) and formed The Loktantrik Janata Dal (LJD) in May 2018.

“It is my moral responsibility to take forward my father’s legacy,” Subhashini told the Indian Express on October 15, adding that she was fighting elections on public demand because her father was hospitalised.

The Congress has also fielded Asif Ghafoor, son of former Bihar CM Abdul Ghafoor from Gopalganj. The party has also fielded Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader Sadanand Singh’s son Shubhanand Mukesh from Kahalgaon and former minister and MLA Awadesh Kumar’s Singh’s son Shashi Shekhar Singh from Wazirganj. Former MLA Aditya Singh’s daughter-in-law Nitu Kumari is the Congress candidate from Hisua.

Shreyasi Singh and Pushpam Priya Choudhary

The JD(U) and the BJP have also fielded their own share of political scions. Shreyasi Singh, daughter of former Union Minister Digvijay Singh and a Commonwealth Games gold medalist in shooting, is contesting from Jamui on a BJP ticket.

Similarly, the Nitish Kumar-led JD (U) also fielded minister Kapil Dev Kamat’s daughter-in-law Meena Kamat from Babubarh, and MLA Janardan Manjhi’s son Jayant Raj from Amarpur.

Chandrika Rai, father of Aishwarya Rai, the estranged wife of RJD leader Tej Pratap Yadav, is contesting on a JD (U) ticket from Parsa. Chandrika Rai is the son of former Bihar CM Daroga Prasad Rai.

On October 22, Nitish Kumar raked up the issue of alleged misbehavior towards Aishwarya Rai.

“Those who misbehaved with her would see in the future how dangerous would be the consequence of ill-treating a woman,” Nitish said at a rally seeking support for Chandrika Rai.

The most interesting scion in the Bihar elections is former JD(U) leader Vinod Kumar Choudhary’s daughter Pushpam Priya Choudhary. A post-graduate from a UK university, Pushpam has floated the ‘Plurals Party’ announcing herself as a CM candidate.