By Dr. Gyan Pathak
Making JD(U) Leader Nitish Kumar’s son Nishant Kumar a minister in the CM Samrat Choudhary led BJP government in Bihar made headlines. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also present during oath-taking, which is seen as his approval of dynastic politics if practiced under his political umbrella, though he has been a strong critic of dynastic politics of other political parties in opposition. All critics of dynastic politics were present there apart from PM Narendra Modi – Union Minister of Home Amit Shah, Union Minister of Defence Rajnath Singh and Union Minister J P Nadda. The worst, Nishant has never even contested an election. He was not even in JD(U) till recently. He joined the party after his father was shifted to Rajya Sabha last month after a deal with PM Narendra Modi to vacate CM’s post for the BJP in Bihar.
Thirty-two ministers including Nishant Kumar took oath at Patna’s historic Gandhi Maidan on Thursday, May 7, 2026, as part of expansion of CM Samrat Choudhary’s government. The leaders of other allies of the BJP in the NDA the HAMS and RLM also got the ministries for their sons. HAMS chief Jitan Ram Manjhi’s son Santosh Manjhi and RLM’s chief Upendra Kushwaha’s son Deepak Prakash were made ministers.
Son’s and daughter of politicians are in considerable number in the entire political spectrum in the country across the states and among all political parties. There is nothing new in it. However, dynastic politics have been criticized by the BJP leadership for a long time in reference to Congress, Samajwadi Party, Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar), RJD especially during elections. BJP leadership have claimed a party with difference, but we have several examples even within the BJP of dynastic politics under which the party gave tickets to son’s and daughter of their political leaders.
As for Nitish Kumar is concerned, he has also been against dynastic politics, but he has done the same dynastic politics when it came to his son, and accepted son’s of other politicians in the NDA as ministers. The incident has exposed the double standard of both the PM Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar on dynastic politics along with their political parties.
During the Bihar elections in November 2025, both PM Modi and CM Nitish attacked RJD and its leader Lalu Prasad Yadav and criticized their dynastic politics, because RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav was the CM face of the INDIA bloc (Mahagathbandhan).
Approving parivarvad and dynastic politics in Bihar now is not the only example. BJP is doing the same thing in other states too. They supported Chirag Paswan the son of Ramvilas Paswan in Bihar, Poonam Mahajan the daughter of Pramod Mahajan, Varun Gandhi the son of Maneka Gandhi, Jayant Sinha the son of Yashwant Sinha, Dushyant Singh the son of Vasundhara Raje Scindia, Anurag Thakur the son of Prem Kumar Dhumal, Parvesh Verma the son of Sahib Singh Verma, B Y Raghavendra the son of B S Yediyurappa, Pritam Munde the son of Gopinath Munde, Raksha Khadse the daughter in law of Eknath Khadse, Heena Gabit the daughter of Vijaykumar Gavit, Akash Vijayvargiya son of Kailash Vijayvargiya and so on. The list is bigger and these are only examples to show how within the BJP dynastic politics exists.
In this backdrop, one can just go through the statements made by PM Narendra Modi on dynastic politics, parivarvad, and nepotimsm made against several politicians chiefly against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, SP leaders Akhilesh Yadav, and RJD leader Tejashvi Yadav. He have been criticizing them and attacking them from family-based political parties.
Against the RJD, PM Modi had said, “RJD means ‘jungle raj’ and family rule … In Bihar, one family treated the entire government as private property … Those involved in corruption and dynastic politics cannot develop Bihar … Some parties exist only to promote sons and daughters.”
“The biggest enemy of democracy still exists and that is dynastic politics,” he had said in a speech at the National Youth Parliament Festival in January 2021. He had said, “Dynastic politics gives rise to a new form of dictatorship in democracy and burdens the country with incompetence.” He also added, “Dynastic politics only strengthens the sentiment of “me and my family” instead of “nation first.” He had made an appeal to the youth, “The poison of dynastic politics will continue to weaken democracy unless youngsters enter politics.”
In February 2022, he had said in an interview with a media organization, “When a party is run for generations by a family, there’s only dynasty, not dynamics.” Next month in March 2022 he had said in the BJP Parliamentary Party meeting regarding denial of tickets to relatives of BJP leaders, “Family politics won’t be allowed in the party.”
In his Independence Day speech in 2022, PM Modi had said, “When I talk about nepotism, people think I am only talking about politics. Unfortunately, this evil has spread into every institution in India.” In the next year’s Independence Day speech in 2023, he said, “Dynastic parties work with the mantra of ‘party of the family, by the family and for the family.”
In February 2025 in Rajya Sabha he said, “Congress prepared such a model of politics in which there was a blend of lies, fraud, corruption, nepotism, and appeasement.”
During his Lok Sabha election speech he said, “Congress is a party which has become confined to one family. … For Congress, the party is above the nation and one family is above the party … the Congress model is ‘family-first’, while our model is ‘nation first’ …. Congress promoted dynastic politics for decades and damaged India’s democratic spirit. … In Congress, talent does not matter; only one surname matters.”
As for Samajwadi Party he said, “Samajwadi Party means ‘parivarwadi party’ … These people can never work for Uttar Pradesh because they are busy saving their own family … One family controls the entire party and government … For them, power is a means to benefit relatives.” (IPA Service)
