Maharashtra: NCP Sharad Pawar faction says dynastic politics breeds in BJP

The NCP-Sharadchandra Pawar on Sunday said dynastic politics breeds in the BJP, and asked the ruling party to look within before accusing others of indulging in it.

At its national council meeting (underway in Delhi), the BJP is targeting the Opposition on dynastic politics and nepotism, the Sharad Pawar-led party's national spokesperson Clyde Crasto said in a statement.

"Dynastic politics breeds in the BJP. The BJP says it will win 370 seats on its own and its NDA alliance will get 400 seats (in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls). If it is so confident, why is it constantly targeting the opposition?" Crasto asked.

The BJP is scared as the Indian Nationalist Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), comprising several leading opposition parties like the Congress and NCP-SP, was getting stronger by the day with the support of the people, Crasto said.

On Saturday, speaking at a rally in Maharashtra's Baramati, Sharad Pawar's estranged nephew and state deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, who broke away from the NCP to form his own faction which the Maharashtra Assembly speaker has ruled as the 'real NCP', implied that he would have become "president of the entire party", founded by his uncle, had he been born as his uncle's son.

"Had I been born in the senior's (Sharad Pawar) house, I would have naturally become the national president, and the entire party (NCP) would have been under my control. Though not in the senior's family, I was still born in his brother's family," said Ajit Pawar, accused of "stealing his uncle's party" and allying with Maharashtra's ruling BJP-Shiv Sena (Shinde) coalition, while refraining from directly naming Pawar senior.

An IndiaSpend survey conducted as the current Lok Sabha began its tenure in 2019 revealed that since 1999, the BJP has had 31 dynastic MPs elected to the Lok Sabha, while the Congress has had 36. In 1999 itself, at the beginning of the 13th Lok Sabha, 8 per cent of Congress MPs were either descended from or married to former MPs, only slightly ahead of the 6 per cent of BJP MPs, the survey showed.

There has also been talk recently that Ajit Pawar's wife Suparna Pawar will contest against Sharad Pawar's daughter and Ajit's cousin Supriya Sule in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde's son Shrikant Shinde is the MP from Kalyan, while Ajit Pawar's fellow deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis is the son of RSS activist and BJP MLC late Gangadhar Fadnavis.