Political families make big gains in Lok Sabha polls

New Delhi: Political families with multiple members in the fray are having a good run in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections with most of them either winning or leading in their respective constituencies.

Most prominent among them are the family members of the two former chief ministers — Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav in Bihar and Samajwadi Party (SP) founder Late Mulayam Singh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh — and former prime minister and JD(S) chief H D Deve Gowda in Karnataka.

Lalu’s two daughters, Misha Bharti and Rohini Acharya, are contesting from Patliputra and Saran, respectively.

According to the latest Election Commission trends, Bharti has achieved a comfortable margin of around 56,000 votes over BJP’s Ram Kripal Yadav from Patliputra.

Acharya is trailing against BJP’s Rajiv Pratap Rudy by over 12,000 in Saran.

In Uttar Pradesh, five members of Yadav’s family are contesting the elections with four of them leading over their nearest rivals by a good margin.

Yadav’s son and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav is leading with 1.7 lakh votes in Kannauj against BJP’s Subrat Pathak.

Akhilesh’s wife Dimple Yadav has secured a comfortable winning margin of 2.2 lakh in Mainpuri against her nearest rival BJP’s Jayveer Singh.

The SP chief’s three cousins — Akshay Yadav, Dharmendra Yadav and Aditya Yadav — are also contesting the elections.

While Akshay is leading with over 89,000 votes against BJP’s Vishwadeep Singh in Firozabad, Dharmendra too has achieved a decisive margin of over 1.6 lakh votes in Azamgarh.

If Aditya, who is locked in a close contest with BJP’s Durvijay Singh Shakya in Badaun, secures a good vote margin, this would be one of the most successful elections for the Yadav family in the recent times.

Two of Gowda’s family members have registered victories in the elections, while his grandson, Prajwal Revanna, lost from the Hassan parliamentary constituency.

The JD(S) chief’s son H D Kumaraswamy won the Mandya seat defeating Congress’ Venkataramane Gowda by a margin of over 2.8 lakh votes and Gowda’s son-in-law and BJP candidate Manjunath secured the Bangalore Rural seat defeating Congress’ DK Suresh by over 2.6 lakh votes.

Revanna, who is facing charges of sexually abusing several women, lost to Congress’ Shreyas M Patel by over 42,000 votes.