[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n Tuesday, when Congress announced its alliance with Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party, many BJP leaders were seen lampooning Akhilesh and Rahul Gandhi for promoting dynasty politics in Uttar Pradesh. However, they have no qualm in inducting 91 year old Narayan Dutt Tiwari and his son Rohit Shekhar, just to lure Brahamin voters in Uttarakhand. Though, last month at Dehradun rally PM Modi had said, “There is nothing called pariwarwad (dynasty politics) in BJP.” However, former CM and MP from Garhwal constituency BC Khanduri’s daughter is candidate for BJP while sitting MLA was denied ticket from same seat. Yashpal Arya, who jumped on BJP’s boat with his son, interestingly both received tickets to take on Congress candidates. Now, Mr. Tiwari and his son boarded the BJP’s vehicle. Why to preach when you cannot practice the same?
The veteran leaders of BJP are parked in Margdarshak Mandal, which is known as an advisory committee. Now, 91 year-old Narayan Dutt Tiwari has joined the BJP. He was the chief minister of two states (UP & UK), a union minister and a governor of Andhra Pradesh, though that stint was cut short when he resigned after a sex scandal. Tiwari’s induction is seen as an attempt to consolidate the Brahmin vote. Already, BJP is facing rebellions in the hill state after naming about 15 people as the candidates, who joined the party recently. Most of them are who rebelled against current Chief Minister Harish Rawat last year pushing him to seek a confidence vote. The party has so far announced 64 candidates for Uttarakhand, which has 70 assembly seats.
Tiwari was a strong contender to be the Prime Minister of India in the early 1990s but was piped to the post by P. V. Narasimha Rao. One of the key reasons was that he lost the Lok Sabha elections by a mere 800 votes. In 1994, he resigned from Congress and formed his own All India Indira Congress (Tiwari) along with senior Congress leader, Arjun Singh. However, he joined back when Sonia Gandhi came at the helm of affairs of the party. Tiwari was elected to the 11th Lok Sabha in 1996, and again to the 13th Lok Sabha in 1999.
He later served as the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, which was carved out of Uttar Pradesh, from 2002 through 2007. He offered to resign on 5 March 2006, citing his age. He left office in March 2007 following setbacks for his party in the state elections.
Tiwari was appointed as Governor of Andhra Pradesh on 19 August 2007 and was sworn in on 22 August. He was involved in a sex scandal that began with the broadcast by Telugu language satellite news channel ABN Andhra Jyothi that showed Tiwari in bed with three women at his official residence in the Raj Bhavan. A police complaint was filed against Tiwari for “sexually abusing girls, blackmail and misuse of office” and the Raj Bhavan staff was interrogated by police about details related to the scandal, alleged to be the result of the fallout of a mining deal. Tiwari publicly apologized, but claimed that he was being “framed” by “a political conspiracy”.
On 27th December 2009, Ekkadu Srinivasan Lakshmi Narasimhan was appointed to discharge the duties of governor for the region until regular arrangements for the office were made.
In 2008, Rohit Shekhar filed a paternity suit claiming Tiwari to be his biological father. The court ordered that DNA mapping of Tiwari be done, which the court successfully compelled compliance with on 29th May 2012. On 27th July 2012, the Delhi High Court, citing a need to end the controversy, rejected a request from Tiwari’s lawyers to keep his paternity test result a secret. The DNA test results released by the court established that Tiwari is the biological father of Rohit Shekhar, and that Ujjwala Sharma is the biological mother. While putting an end to the entire controversy, on 22nd May 2014, Tiwari married Ujjwala Sharma, in a ceremony that took place in Lucknow.
We all know that the ‘power crazy’ politicians switch sides and these kinds of imports are not new in Indian politics, especially in national parties. They have justifications for distributing tickets to such people or importing them. Earlier version of BJP was much better. Now, there is no difference between Congress party and Modi’s BJP. With the latest developments, Uttarakhand BJP is actually a new Congress party. Almost, all senior Congress leaders have joined BJP leaving the present CM Harish Rawat aside. BJP is also following Congress footsteps and distributing tickets to new joiners and their relatives. Now, I believe that Congress is better option to retain power in Uttarkhand as CM Hairsh Rawat has no camp to oppose. While in BJP, there are five ex-CMs (three from BJP and two ex-Congress’s CMs) and many CM aspirants. So, if BJP wins anyhow then government’s stability will be in question.
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