It is all in the family in TN: Political parties mostly fielding kin, DMK tops list

Chennai: Leaders grooming their children or family members to take over the mantle from them aren’t new to Tamil Nadu politics. But such a trend is now being normalised in the state, which has largely been bipolar for the past five decades, with as many as 16 people from political families seeking to contest the April 19 Lok Sabha polls.

Topping the list is the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which has given tickets to six ‘dynasts’, including Kanimozhi Karunanidhi and Dayanidhi Maran, followed by the AIADMK and Congress who have nominated three such candidates each. BJP, MDMK, DMDK, and PMK have fielded one candidate each with family background.

Besides Kanimozhi and Dayanidhi Maran, who are contesting from Thoothukudi and Chennai Central, three other candidates with family background are Tamizhachi Thangapandian (Chennai South), Kalanidhi Veeraswamy (Chennai North), and Arun Nehru (Perambalur), and D M Kathir Anand (Vellore).

While Tamizhachi is the daughter of former DMK minister V Thangapandian and elder sister of Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu, Kalanidhi is the son of DMK veteran, Arcot N Veeraswamy, Arun is the son of Municipal Administration Minister K N Nehru, and Anand is the son of DMK general secretary Durai Murugan.

Karti P Chidambaram, son of former Union Minister P Chidambaram, Vijay Vasanth, whose father H Vasanthakumar of the famed Vasanth & Co was an MLA and MP, and M K Vishnuprasad are those in the Congress with family connections to have been given a ticket. Chidambaram, Vishnuprasad, and Vasanth are contesting from Sivaganga, Cuddalore, and Kanyakumari.

In the AIADMK, its Chennai South candidate Dr J Jayavardhan is the son of former minister D Jayakumar, while D Lokesh Tamilselvan (Nilgiris) is the son of former Assembly speaker and sitting MLA P Dhanapal. The party’s Coimbatore candidate, ‘Singai’ G Ramachandran’ is the son of former MLA ‘Singai’ Govindarajan.

Even the BJP, whose biggest complaint against Opposition parties is ‘parivarvaad’, hasn’t spared itself of this trend by allotting a ticket to popular actor Raadhika, whose husband Sarath Kumar merged his party All India Samathuva Makkal Katchi (AISMK) with the saffron party a fortnight ago.

Raadhika is contesting from Virudhunagar against Congress whip in Lok Sabha, Manickam Tagore, and DMDK’s Vijaya Prabhakar, son of the party founder late Vijayakanth.

Vaiko, whose claim to fame is his intense opposition to dynastic politics in the DMK, has succumbed to the ‘popular pattern’ by nominating his son from Tiruchirapalli, the lone seat from where his party MDMK is contesting.

PMK has nominated Sowmiya Anbumani, wife of its president and former Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss, from Dharmapuri, while her brother M K Vishnuprasad is the Congress candidate from Cuddalore. Their maternal grandfather ‘Thalapathy’ K Vinayagam was one of the prime movers along with Tamil nationalist, Ma Po Sivagnanam, in retrieving parts of Tamil Nadu annexed to Andhra Pradesh during the bifurcation of the then Madras state in the 1950s.

Political analyst Prof. Gladston Xavier told DH that this kind of “nepotic politics” that is prevalent across India, not just in Tamil Nadu, is neither the best nor the healthy way as it prevents leaders being nurtured in a democratic way.

“Tamil Nadu has had a rich heritage of building democratically rich leaders who were heirless like K Kamaraj, M G Ramachandran, and J Jayalalithaa. The current trend isn’t healthy as it is not a transferable job. A vacuum of leadership is being deliberately created because these parties have accumulated a lot of wealth and they want to defend it,” Xavier said.

No party is immune to encouraging dynastic politics, Xavier said, while pushing the need for “leadership grooming” which will augur well for democracy.