Rahul factor fuels change in parties
The “Rahul factor” is virtually compelling political parties to a regime change. While over half a dozen regional parties, including Samajwadi Party, DMK, NCP, Shiromani Akali Dal, Janata Dal (S), RLD, LJP and the Shiv Sena, have started projecting their future leaders, the BSP, the AIADMK and the Janata Dal (U) have yet to make up their mind on this issue.
If Mr Akhilesh Yadav, the sitting Lok Sabha member from Kannauj, is leading the Samajwadi Party’s election campaign in Uttar Pradesh from the front, the Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Jayant Chaudhary has emerged as a future of the party. He is also the Lok Sabh member from Mathura. People see resemblance between him and his grandfather Chaudhary Charan Singh.
According to sources, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, Mr Akhilesh Yadav and Mr Jayant Chaudhary together could decide who should be the UP chief minister if people give a fractured mandate this time.
Mr M.K. Stalin is seen as a successor to DMK supremo M. Karunanidhi. The Sharad Pawar-led NCP sees both — Supriya Sule, the Lok Sabha member from Baramati and Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, as it future leaders.
In Karnataka, former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy has already emerged a leader of the Janata Dal (S). Deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal is already leading the Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab.
The Lok Janashakti Party leader Ram Vilas Paswan has already given enough indications that his actor son Chirag would join active politics.
The Shiv Sena has not only projected Mr Uddhav Thackeray as a successor to Mr Bal Thackeray, but has also started grooming Aditya Thackeray, the son of Uddhav, in the party.
But two prominent regional parties —the BSP and the AIADMK — led by chief ministers Mayawati and Jayalalithaa, would find it difficult to prolong the decision about their successors at a time when their rival parties projecting new leaders in UP and Tamil Nadu.
The Janata Dal (U) and the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led RJD consist of former socialists and thus their criterion for projecting a leader would be different from other parties.
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