The father must let her go to enforce discipline in the party, now that she has put the party leadership in the dock over corruption allegations. The sister did not blame her father or brother, K.T. Rama Rao.
KCR and KTR have been silent all through—right since the beginning of the controversy over the ‘leaked’ letter bomb in May, in which she had criticised her father for being soft on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
They made no attempt to speak to her and pacify her after she went public, hinting at a conspiracy against her by those surrounding her father. As she told this reporter last month, she was looking to tie a rakhi on her brother’s wrist. On that day, however, KTR went out of town.
There are many unanswered questions in this entire Kavitha episode. Why would KCR not talk it out with his daughter if she had issues with her cousins and saw a conspiracy against her?
It was her mother who had carried that letter from her to her father. Who leaked it? Why would KTR break communications with his little sister? Harish Rao has been a strong contender for KCR’s political legacy. It was all the more reason for KTR to support his sister when she was training her guns at Harish.
Curiously, last May, Harish declared that he would welcome KTR’s elevation to the party chief’s post, virtually forfeiting his claim for the legacy.
What brought all three brothers together? Was Kavitha launching a succession war? When KCR had asked her to contest the 2014 Lok Sabha election, he had made it clear to her that KTR would be his political heir. She was okay with it.
Did something change suddenly? There are no clear answers to these questions yet.
Uncertain political future
Out of the BRS, Kavitha is facing an uncertain political future. A look at the history of feuds in the first families of political parties shows that odds are stacked against her. Few have survived to thrive in politics after taking on the family patriarch.
One can counter it with the example of the Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav, who had rebelled against his father, late Mulayam Singh Yadav, to wrest control of the party. Mulayam had stood with his brother, Shivpal Yadav, in his fight against the nephew.
What was curious about this case was the fact that Mulayam had virtually given his son a walkover in the fight for the SP symbol in the Election Commission. The father didn’t submit any affidavit to the EC to substantiate his claim of support in the SP legislative party or the organisation.
The SP founder couldn’t have an MP, MLA, or party office-bearer to support his claim for the party symbol! That lent credence to speculation in political circles that the wily politician had found a way to end all future challenges to his son’s leadership from any other family members, including Shivpal.
After all, Mulayam was the one who had made Akhilesh the CM in 2012, virtually anointing him as his successor. This will, however, always remain in the realm of speculation as Mulayam Singh is not there to corroborate or deny it.
One can also cite the example of Ajit Pawar, who has wrested the original Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) from Sharad Pawar. The latter did manage to hand over his political legacy to his daughter, Supriya Sule, but it will remain contested, given that the Maharashtra deputy CM got the original party symbol and his NCP is much stronger than his cousin’s as of today.
Also Read: Hours after suspension, Kavitha’s stormy exit from BRS, with a word of caution to her father & brother
Succession wars
There may be some exceptions but few politicians have thrived after taking on family patriarchs or matriarchs in succession wars.
Let’s start with Maneka Gandhi’s exit from Indira Gandhi’s Safdarjung Road house on 28 March 1982. The latter had chosen her son, Rajiv Gandhi, over her ambitious daughter-in-law. Maneka launched the Rashtriya Sanjay Manch the next year, only to merge it with the Janata Dal five years later. In 2004, she joined the BJP.
Out of the Nehru-Gandhi family and the Congress, Maneka didn’t do badly as she became a multi-term MP and a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi governments. Her son, Varun, was also an MP.
But the other branch of the family, led by Sonia Gandhi, inherited the political legacy—in terms of controlling the Congress. One can always speculate about the probability of sibling rivalry in the Sonia-led branch of the family—given how Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is seen as a leader with better vibes with party colleagues and the people—but it’s still conjectural.
Family head always prevails
There are two kinds of battles in a family-run party. The first is the battle between siblings—either between brothers or sisters or step-brothers or step-sisters. The second is the battle within the family, but which goes beyond blood relations, like daughters-in-law, cousins and uncles.
They reflect the patriarchal order in Indian society. First, the choice of a family or party patriarch—or a matriarch, for that matter—always prevails, no matter which brother or sister is better. You are the chosen one, declares the patriarch (or the matriarch) and that’s it. Second, if it’s between a brother and a sister, the brother is always the winner. Even if you may think that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has better potential, she must play second fiddle to brother Rahul because mother Sonia wants it this way.
Or, for that matter, even if Kavitha may be better than KTR—which most people don’t think—KCR would back son KTR and the people must accept it. But if it’s between a brother/sister and a cousin or an uncle, the former always wins.
Going back to the roles of daughters-in-law, BJP MP Kiran Choudhry can justifiably claim to have inherited the legacy of former Haryana chief minister Bansi Lal. He had chosen her husband, Surender Singh, over his other son, Ranbir Singh Mahendra, as his successor.
The two branches of the family have been fighting it out in the electoral arena. In the 1998 Lok Sabha election, Ranbir Singh, as a Congress candidate, took on his brother Surendra Singh, a Haryana Vikas Party candidate, in the Bhiwani constituency. Ranbir lost, though.
Taking the rivalry further, in the 2024 Haryana assembly election, Ranbir Singh’s son, Anirudh, contested on a Congress ticket against Surender Singh’s daughter, Shruti, a BJP candidate, from Tosham. Ranbir Singh’s son lost.
Another daughter-in-law who lost out in the legacy battle is Sita Soren, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) chief Shibu Soren’s elder son Durga’s wife. Durga was the heir apparent but died in 2009, forcing the father to pass on his mantle to his brother, Hemant.
After years of sulking and fighting from within, Sita Soren quit the JMM and joined the BJP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election in Jharkhand. She, however, lost in the Lok Sabha and the subsequent Assembly elections, putting an end to the rivalry with brother-in-law Hemant for Shibu Soren’s legacy.
Coming to the rivalry between brothers or sons, in another Lal dynasty of Haryana, Devi Lal had chosen Om Prakash Chautala over his other son in politics, Ranjit Singh, as his successor in 1989. The succession battle continued in this dynasty with Om Prakash Chautala backing his younger son, Abhay.
The second son, Ajay Chautala, was expelled from the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) in 2018. His sons, Dushyant and Digvijay, were also thrown out of the INLD. They went on to form the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), with Dushyant becoming the deputy CM in the BJP-led Haryana government. With Abhay Chautala’s INLD winning two seats and the JJP winning zero in the last Haryana assembly election, Devi Lal’s political legacy is in tatters today.
In Bihar, the Lok Janshakti Party’s Ram Vilas Paswan passed on his political legacy to his son, Chirag, who successfully put down the challenge thrown by his uncle, Pashupati Kumar Paras.
In Bihar’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Lalu Yadav preferred Tejashwi over his brother Tej Pratap. Expelled from the party in May, Tej Pratap is now seeking to bring together a few minor parties and contest the coming election in what looks like a desperate bid to remain relevant.
In many other political dynasties, the family patriarch ensured that his chosen successor didn’t have any issues later in life.
Let’s not bring in Mulayam Singh Yadav in this context. Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) chief Karunanidhi chose M.K. Stalin over M.K. Alagiri; Janata Dal (Secular)’s H.D. Deve Gowda preferred H.D. Kumaraswamy over his brother H.D. Revanna; and the Shiv Sena’s Bal Thackeray chose son Uddhav Thackeray over nephew Raj.
In cases where the successor wasn’t formally or ostensibly appointed by the family patriarch, the succession battle has been messy. Take the case of Union minister Anupriya Patel, who came into her own as a leader after her father and Apna Dal founder Sone Lal Patel’s death in a road accident. Her family has been split since then, with her mother, Krishna, and sister, Pallavi, parting ways and floating Apna Dal (Kamerawadi).
Coming back to K. Kavitha’s case, it looks more like a replay of what happened in former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy’s family after his death in a helicopter crash in 2009. He had virtually declared his son, Jagan Mohan, his successor by sending him to the Lok Sabha.
His daughter, Sharmila, seemed to be ready to play second fiddle as she rallied behind her elder brother when he was sent to jail. Once he became the CM, she felt neglected. She ultimately left her brother’s party, the YSRCP, and his family. She is now the Andhra Pradesh Congress chief.
These instances of family feuds in dynastic parties aren’t very encouraging for K. Kavitha. She hasn’t said a word against her brother or father and has rather chosen to emphasise that they should be wary of the conspirators who wanted to split their family and take over the BRS.
It would, however, be ingenuous to think that her cousins forced her exit from the BRS while her father, the BRS chief, and brother, the party’s working president, looked on helplessly. History has many lessons for her.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
Also Read: Kavitha’s suspension brings family feud out in open—Kaleshwaram, cousins & a father’s final word
