New Delhi: In face of a massive wave in favour of the BJP sweeping the country, many political families managed to keep their forts secure while some, including Congress president Rahul Gandhi, lost their bastions.
Sonia Gandhi’s victory in Rae Bareli lost its sheen courtesy her son Rahul, who lost in Amethi, a traditional seat of his family, to the BJP’s Smriti Irani by over 55,000 votes. The Congress president, however, won in Kerala’s Wayanad with a margin of 4,31,770 votes.
Maneka and Varun, the mother-son duo from the Gandhi family who contested on BJP tickets, emerged victorious in Sultanpur and Pilibhit, respectively.
In the Samajwadi Party’s first family, party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav won in Mainpuri by 94,389 votes, while Akhilesh bagged a comfortable victory in Azamgarh with a lead of over 2.59 lakh votes. However, Akhilesh’s wife Dimple Yadav lost out on the Kannauj seat by 11,970 votes to BJP’s Subrat Pathak.
While BJP star candidate from Bollywood Sunny Deol won from Punjab’s Gurdaspur, his stepmother and veteran actress Hema Malini won by a thumping majority in UP’s Mathura by over 2.9 lakh votes.
In Punjab, power couple the SAD’s Sukhbir Singh Badal and his wife Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal won comfortably in Firozpur and Bathinda constituencies, respectively.
However, the stars did not favour famous couple Former BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha, now fighting on a Congress ticket in Patna Sahib, and his wife Poonam Sinha, a debutante on a Samajwadi Party ticket from Lucknow. While Shatrughan Sinha lost to union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad by 2,84,657 votes, Poonam lost to Rajnath Singh, who polled over 3.47 lakh votes more than her.
In the west, the Nationalist Congress Party secured the Baramati seat in Maharashtra with its chief Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule winning by 1,55,774 votes. However, Pawar’s nephew Parth lost in Maval by a margin of 2,15,913 votes.
Meanwhile, the Paswans of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) fared impressively in Bihar. While Ram Vilas Paswan’s brother Ramchandra Paswan won from Samastipur, his other bother Pashu Pati Kumar Paras sealed a win in Hajipur. The LJP president’s son Chirag also won in Jamui by 2,41,049 votes.
Down south, taking the lead are late Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi, and grand-nephew Dayanidhi Maran of the DMK. Kanimozhi won in Thoothukudi, and Maran in Chennai Central, by 3,47,209 and 3,01,520 votes, respectively.
Also featuring in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections are feuding factions within political families. In UP’s Firozabad, Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (PSPL) candidate Shivpal Singh Yadav lost to his nephew Akshay Yadav. The seat however, was won by BJP’s Chandra Sen Jadon.
Vying for the Malda North seat in West Bengal were cousin sisters – Trinamool Congress’ Mausam Noor and Congress’ Isha Khan Choudhury, but the constituency was eventually bagged by BJP candidate Khagen Murmu, who won by 84,288 votes.
In Andhra Pradesh’s Aruku, daughter V Shruti Devi of the Congress was pitted against her father Kishore Chandra Deo of the TDP. The seat finally went to YSR Congress’ Goddeti Madhavi.