Rajnath Singh on 'parivarvaad' politics, says denied ticket to son in 2017 UP Assembly polls

Mar 28, 2024

NEW DELHI: Amid criticism by Opposition parties, especially the Congress, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday recalled that he had once denied a party ticket for his own son, the current MLA from Noida because he did not want to be accused of propagating 'parivaarvaad' (dynasty politics).

Speaking at the Time Now Summit, the union minister referred to 2007 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections during the time he was the BJP President.

"At that time, former Chief Minister Kalyan Singh and current Governor of Rajasthan Kalraj Mishra came to me that they suggested that Pankaj Singh can contest from an assembly constituency in Varanasi. At that time, I was the president of the party and I refused.

"Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani who were sitting next to me requested me but I refused both leaders and said that I will not give the ticket to my son with my own hands."

Singh said, his son was also upset that he did not get my blessing.

"Pankaj came home and touched my feet, I did not give my blessings to him. He was very sad and went and complained to his mother. I clearly said that I cannot not give the symbol to my son with my own hand. After that Pankaj acted with great restraint and said to me 'Papa, if you don't want me, I will not contest the elections," the Union Minister said.

Singh said that his son was given a ticket to contest in 2017 when Amit Shah was the national president of the BJP.

Explaining more about the concept of 'parivaarwad', Rajnath Singh said, "Suppose I am the president of a party and have a wish that my son would hold the post after me and later his son ... we call them parivaarwad. PM Modi also clarified dynastic politics in the House, in which he said that 'If 8-9 people of a family are active in the politics, we cannot call it parivarvaad, but when a family runs a party and preference is given to a family, that is parivarvaad'. It means that the party does not practice democracy and there should be at least internal democracy in every party," Singh said.

PM Modi had on February 5 in his Motion of Thanks to the President's address speech in Parliament said that if a family has progressed on its own, they do not oppose it and they oppose the nepotism in which the family alone runs the family party and the family takes all the decisions of the party."

Addressing a rally in Nizamabad last year, BJP national J P Nadda had said, "We are fighting Farooq Abdullah and his son and Mehbooba Mufti in Jammu and Kashmir. Prakash Singh Badal and now Sukhbir Singh Badal in Punjab. Chautala Brothers in Haryana. In Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party, whose leaders were Mulayam Singh and later Akhilesh and Dimple. We are fighting Lalu's family in Bihar, Mamata and her nephew in Bengal, Stalin's family in Tamil Nadu, and KCR, KTR and Kavitha here in Telangana."