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Royalty continues to seek legitimacy through the ballot

Shorn of their regal splendour, scions of erstwhile royal families in the country have never fought shy of rubbing their shoulders with the commoners -- at the hustings.

This time also, they are in full strength but their booming political ambitions have made them join the bandwagons of rival parties, keeping their familial ties on the backburner.

Heading the pack of blue blood fraternity is Congress heavyweight Madhavrao Scindia, scion of the former princely state of Gwalior. Suave and armed with quality education at Oxford, Scindia has transformed himself from a flamboyant prince to a popular leader.

Known for his political savvy, Scindia, who was denied the Congress ticket in the last election in the wake of the hawala scam, had then floated his own outfit, the Madhya Pradesh Vikas Congress, and won as its nominee. After being readmitted to the Congress, he has once again been fielded from his home turf for the fifth time.

Scindia has been representing Gwalior since he defeated BJP veteran Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the 1984 general election, though he had entered the Lok Sabha in 1971 as a candidate of the erstwhile Bharatiya Jana Sangh from Guna. He also won the 1971 and 1977 elections from Guna, but as an Independent and Congress nominee respectively.

Scindia, who has won all the seven Lok Sabha polls he contested, is this time pitted against the Bahujan Samaj Party's Jaibhan Singh Baraiya. Baraiya had secured more than 113,000 votes in the last poll when the BJP did not field its candidate against Scindia, who won the election by more than 223,000 votes.

While Scindia broke away from the erstwhile Jan Sangh to emerge as a Congress stalwart, his mother and sister have remained under the saffron veil.

Scindia's estranged mother Vijayaraje Scindia, a BJP veteran, is contesting the Guna seat, which has the distinction of electing only members of the Scindia family on the last eight occasions. Like her son, she has also won seven elections, but lost once to Indira Gandhi from Rai Bareili in 1980.

This time, high drama was witnessed in Guna where Yashodhararaje, the Rajmata's youngest daughter, also filed nomination papers as a dummy candidate for her indisposed mother. But her papers were rejected on the ground that these did not contain signatures of the requisite number of proposers. She later rued that her papers were rejected due to errors committed by those who had helped her at the time of filing papers.

Born in Britain and married in the US, Yashodhara has not only regained her Indian citizenship but also got herself registered as a voter in Shivpuri indicating her ambition to contest from Guna of which the town is a part.

Yashodhara's elder sister Vasundhararaje, who has won from Jhalawar in neighbouring Rajasthan since 1989, is once again the BJP nominee from this constituency.

Elsewhere in Madhya Pradesh, Laxman Singh, Chief Minister Digvijay Singh's younger brother and a member of the erstwhile Raghogarh princely state, is contesting from Rajgarh. Former Uttar Pradesh governor Motilal Vora, the Congress nominee from Rajnandgaon, is pitted against Rajiv Gandhi's Doon School mate and former MP, Shivendra Bahadur Singh, of the erstwhile Khairagarh state. Vora has won thrice from this constituency.

Arjun Singh, who belongs to a jagirdar family of the Vindhya region, is the Congress nominee from Hoshangabad. He contested the last election as an Indira Congress-T nominee from Satna, but was relegated to third place. In all, six candidates belonging to former royal families have won from the state in previous elections.

In Uttar Pradesh, fewer members from the royalty are in the fray this time as compared to previous elections. Ironically, the Samajwadi Party has fielded four members from royal families, the largest by any party.

The BJP has fielded Sanjay Singh, of the Amethi aristocracy, from that constituency against Captain Satish Sharma of the Congress, while former Tehri ruler Manvendra Shah will contest for the third time from Tehri-Garhwal, where he is pitted against Heera Singh Bisht of the Congress and Munna Chauhan of the SP. Shah had won the 1991 and 1996 elections as a BJP nominee.

Film director Muzzaffar Ali, the son of Raja Sajid Hussain of Khasa (Khiri) principality, and the SP nominee, will take on Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Lucknow. The SP candidate from Rampur belongs to a nawab's family and is pitted against Congress nominee Begum Noor Bano, widow of the Rampur nawab and former MP, Zulfikar Ali Khan.

The SP has not fielded former Gonda ruler Anand Singh because of his age, but gave the ticket to his son Kirtivardhan Singh. The party's fourth nominee from royalty is Abhay Pratap Singh, son of the Pratapgarh ruler, from Pratapgarh. He is being challenged by his cousin Ratna Singh. The sitting MP, Ratna Singh is the daughter of the late ruler of Kalakankar and former external affairs minister, Raja Dinesh Singh.

Of the dozen-odd royal families in the desert state of Rajasthan who dabbled in politics, only a few are active now. This time, there are two former maharanis and a former princess in the fray. Princess Krishnendra Kaur alias Deepa is the Samajwadi Party nominee from Bharatpur where her opponents are former Union minister of state for external affairs K Natwar Singh (Congress) and Dr Digambar Singh (BJP). Deepa Kaur had won the seat in 1991 as a BJP nominee.

Vasundhararaje, the former maharani of Dholpur, is the BJP nominee from Jhalawar. In Alwar, former yuvrani Mahendra Kumari, who won the seat in 1991 on the BJP ticket, is contesting as an Independent after she was denied the same in the last as well as this election.

In Himachal Pradesh, blue blood dominates the list of candidates for the 1998 Lok Sabha and assembly polls. Congress nominee Rani Pratibha Singh, wife of Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, who as a youth ruled the powerful state of Bushahr (now in Shimla and Kinnaur districts), is fighting Sukh Ram of the Himachal Vikas Congress from the Mandi Lok Sabha constituency. The BJP nominee is Maheshwar Singh, the former raja of Kulu, who is related to Pratibha Singh by marriage.

Closer in Punjab, Congress nominee Capt Amarinder Singh, the former maharaja of Patiala, has flung the gauntlet at sitting Shiromani Akali Dal MP Prem Singh Chandumajra.

Orissa has also its share of nominees of royal lineage. Former Union minister and Congress nominee K P Singh Deo is seeking re-election from the former princely state of Dhenkanal, where his rival is Tathagat Satpathy (BJP), son of former state chief minister Nandini Satpathy.

Sitting BJP MLA Bikram Keshari Deo, a scion of the former Kalahandi state and K P Singh Deo's brother-in-law, is contesting against Bhakta Charan Das, who recently crossed over to the Congress from the Samajwadi Janata Party. Sangeeta Kumari of the Bolangir royal family is contesting from Bolangir where her opponent is sitting Congress MP Sarat Pattnaik. The fourth nominee is K C Gajapati, of the former Paralakhenundi princely state, who is the BJP candidate from Berhampur and pitted against Jayanti Patnaik, Rajya Sabha MP and wife of Chief Minister J B Patnaik.

Elections '98

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