Mumbai: The principle of ‘family first’ is evident this election season. A cursory analysis of the BMC poll nominations showed that at least 43 politicans have got tickets for their family members, including wives, children, siblings, in-laws, cousins, and even distant relatives. While BJP MLA Rahul Narwekar, Congress MLA Aslam Shaikh and former NCP MLA Nawab Malik managed to secure three tickets each for their family members, several others got one or two tickets for their kin. Since the BMC polls are a multi-cornered contest, political observers said, sitting MLAs used their clout to adjust family members, leaving long-waiting party workers and office-bearers sidelined. Many netas even extended beyond their ‘family-first quota’ and managed to get tickets for in-laws and distant releatives too. “Usually, tickets are given to immediate family members, like spouses, children and siblings. But this time, since NCP is not in the Mahayuti and Congress is contesting solo, there was a scramble for seats. Senior netas used this chance to flex muscle and get tickets for their kin after convincing the party concerned that there was no other alternative. Parties too conceded as they did not want to take any risk,” a political observer said.The BJP is not known to promote nepotism and dynastic politics, but this time it too gave in to pressure and ended up giving three tickets to MLA Rahul Narwekar’s kin. “BJP did not give BMC tickets to some neta’s kin such as minister Ashish Shelar’s brother Vinod Shelar, but looked the other way in the case of Narwekar’s kin and MLC Praveen Darekar’s brother Prakash who will contest from Ward No 3 in Dahisar….this was very selective and for convenience,” the political observer said.
