“Unka Sankalp, Vipareet Bharat”
“Sab ka Naash, Sab ka Vinaash”

THE Maharashtra assembly elections are scheduled to take place in one phase on 20th and those in Jharkhand in two phases, on 13th and 20th, all in November.
The Shinde government has reportedly announced during the last three months freebies and road development works worth about Rs2 lakh crore. This is expected to generate goodwill among more than two crore women voters and among hundreds of civil-work contractors who have reportedly been given huge advances. These contractors are ostensibly expected to pass on a certain percentage of these advances to the ruling party before the election. This apart, the huge funds illegally collected by the BJP through the unconstitutional electoral bonds will continue to be spent on BJP candidates in Maharashtra and Jharkhand.
Add to the huge flow of funds into the BJP election campaign, the field work of the “RSS” karyakarta, the servile Election Commission, the unscrupulous, unprofessional and mercenary “godi” media and the unintelligible pro-BJP magic of the EVMs in many constituencies, to complete the winning formula.
But on second thoughts, the formula may yet prove to be incomplete and ineffective to ensure a victory. This formula was in play in the run up to 2024 Lok Sabha polls and the subsequent assembly bye-elections, where the Modi-Shah duo failed.
The ill-advised misadventure of the Modi-Shah duo, in engineering large scale defections from the Shiv Sena and the NCP, and forming a government with breakaway groups, has badly hurt the Marathi-speaking people’s pride and there is no way the unpopular Shinde and Ajit Pawar factions of Shiv Sena and NCP can placate the Marathi voters. This is in spite of the cloud-burst of freebies and field work of the RSS. The Modi-Shah duo, Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar, had to bear the brunt of voters’ anger in the Lok Sabha polls hardly four months back.
Now, add to this, the prevalent anger against the BJP gang, the infighting within the gang of Modi, Shinde and Ajit Pawar and the formula for the defeat of the unscrupulous government of defectors is complete. The chemistry and arithmetic within the three major partners of Maha Vikas Aghadi and their synergy, that is likely to come into play in the next four weeks, may drive the final nail in BJP’s political coffin in Maharashtra.
Modi-Shah’s report card is very clean since it is blank. They cannot boast of any achievements, either for the country or for Maharashtra, during the last 10 years of their rule. That is the reason why Modi’s raving and ranting about parivarvaad (hypocrisy) and corruption goes on unabated and now even those two claims about the Opposition being full of parivarvaad and corruption, threaten to sound hollow and hypocritical, since it is now widely known that the BJP is more afflicted by parivarvaad and corruption than other political parties.
Modi’s tirade on parivarvaad is primarily directed against the Nehru-Gandhi family. Modi suffers either from a short term memory loss or assumes that the Indian voter is a fool. Supriya Shrinate, a fiery spokesperson of the Congress, released a list of the names of important politicians in the BJP whose family connections were an important consideration:
Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah, Rajnath Singh’s son Pankaj Singh, Narayan Rane’s son Nilesh Rane, Sonelal Patel’s daughter Anupriya Patel, Madhavrao Scindia’s son Jyotiraditya Scindia, Gangadhar Fadanavis’ son Devendra Fadanavis, Prem Kumar Dhumal’s son Anurag Thakur, Ved Prakash Goyal’s son Piyush Goyal, Rinchin Kharu’s son Kiren Rijiju, Arjun Pawar’s daughter-in-law Bharati Pravin Pawar, CPN Singh’s son RPN Singh, Anurag Thakur’s brother Arun Singh Dhumal, Gopinath Munde’s daughter Pankaja Munde, Pramod Mahajan’s daughter Poonam Mahajan, Kailash Vijay Vargiya’s son Akash Vijay Vargiya, Rao Birender Singh’s son Rao Inderjit Singh, Deepa Manjhi, daughter-in-law of Jitan Ram Manjhi.
Not included in Supriya Shrinate’s list, but otherwise well known to be part of the BJP or NDA are Anil Antony, son of AK Antony, Maneka Gandhi and Varun Gandhi, both belonging to the Nehru-Gandhi family, Raj Thackeray, cousin of Uddhav Thackerey, the husband-wife team of Vishwajeet Rane and Deviya Rane, Atanasio Monseratte and Jennifer Monseratte, Michael Lobo and Delilah Lobo.
During the last Lok Sabha Elections in Bihar, Tejashwi Yadav pointed out that 13 out of 40 BJP candidates belonged to political families connected with NDA partners.
Ravish Kumar, the famous journalist, who now has his own YouTube channel, has culled out from official lists, names of candidates who have been given tickets by the BJP in Maharashtra and Jharkhand for the ensuing Assembly Elections:

Maharashtra
Shrijaya Chavan, daughter of Ashok Chavan; Vinod Shelar, brother of Ashish Shelar; Amol Javale, son of Haribhau Javale; Shankar Jagtap, brother of Laxman Jagtap; Pratibha Pachpute, wife of Baban Pachpute; Dhananjay Mahadik, brother of Amal Mahadik; Santosh Danve, son of Raosaheb Danve; Sambhaji Patil, grandson of Shivajirao Patil; Siddharth Shirole, son of Anil Shirole.

Jharkhand
Purnima Das Sahu, daughter-in-law of Raghuvir Das Sahu; Babulal Soren, son of Champai Soren; Meera Munda, wife of Arjun Munda; Shatrughn Mahato, brother of Dhullu Mahato; Tara Devi, wife of Indrajeet Mahato; Ragini Singh, wife of Sanjeev Singh; Geeta Koda, wife of Madhu Koda.
Modi does not have his own parivaar (family). It is foolish for him to find fault with other parivaar just because he does not have one. His party, the BJP, is however indulging in a much bigger parivarvaad than of any other political party. Now that the knowledge of Modi’s parivarvaad has been in public domain, it is high time he stops talking about the subject in his rallies. In case he does not, his paramaatmaa should ask him to do so.
In our democracy, WE, THE PEOPLE, should be the paramaatmaa for our candidates and their parties. Can WE, THE PEOPLE, play the role of Paramaatmaa in Maharashtra and Jharkhand?