AIADMK is stumbling without Jaya, but most political parties in India are solo (or family) shows

The fortnight-long hospitalisation of J Jayalalithaa has put the spotlight on the succession crisis in the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu

The state chief minister has been in hospital since September 22 and doctors have maintained that she is responding to treatment. However, there has been much speculation on the nature and seriousness of her illness. In fact, a public interest litigation about this was filed before the Madras High Court, which on Tuesday asked the government to give out details on Jayalalithaa’s health as people were anxious to know how she was.

Amid conjecture and widespread concern that the 68-year-old chief minister is seriously ill, questions are being raised on who could possibly be the next in line to run the party, if the need arises.

Jayalalithaa has exercised complete control over the AIADMK ever since she assumed its leadership in 1989, shortly after the death of founder MG Ramachandran. The four-time Tamil Nadu chief minister, Amma to her supporters, enjoys the status of a demi-god in the party, leaving no scope for anybody to even openly aspire to be her successor.

Early signs

The leadership crisis in AIADMK first came to light in 2014, when Jayalalithaa was sentenced to four years in jail by a special court in Bengaluru in an 18-year-old corruption case and removed from the post of chief minister.

After much speculation, she handpicked loyalist O Panneerselvam to take her post. But even as chief minister, Panneerselvam, who is known to prostrate himself before Jayalalithaa, remained in awe of her. He did not occupy the chief minister’s chamber in the secretariat and continued to function from his ministerial office. He also initially refused to occupy the chief minister’s seat in the state assembly and did so only after being repeatedly derided by the Opposition.

When Jayalalithaa was acquitted of all charges in May 2015, he promptly stepped aside and gave her back the chief minister’s throne.

Solo show

But Jayalalithaa is not the only leader who rules with an iron fist. Many parties across the country function as a one-woman or one-man show. For instance, the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal is pretty much inconceivable without its leader, Mamata Banerjee, as is Uttar Pradesh’s Bahujan Samaj Party without Mayawati and Odisha's Biju Janata Dal without Naveen Patnaik.

All these leaders are known to be autocratic, encouraging of sycophancy and ruthless towards dissent. Though constantly surrounded by fawning party workers, they do not trust anybody and are essentially loners. In all these parties, there is no clear alternative to the existing leaders.

In Odisha, Naveen Patnaik, who has led the Biju Janata Dal to a three-term victory in the state, is also said to be given to frequent illnesses. Without Patnaik at its helm, the Biju Janata Dal may well fall apart, as he has not named anyone as his potential successor.

Two years ago, when too the chief minister’s health was a cause of concern, there was speculation that his nephew Arun Patnaik would carry forward the legacy of the party, named after Biju Patnaik, the father of Naveen Patnaik. However, these rumours were put to rest by Arun Patnaik himself when, in 2015, he said that he had no intention of joining politics at the moment.

Unlike Jayalalithaa and Patnaik, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati had addressed of the issue of succession at a public rally in 2008, when declared that there was a conspiracy to assassinate her. She assured the party that they should not worry as she had named her successor, the identity of whom she did not confirm. Eight years later, however, Mayawati remains the Dalit party’s undisputed leader.

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has not named her successor either. But ever since she inducted her young nephew Abhishek Banerjee into politics in 2011, when he was just 24, and made him the president of the Trinamool Yuva, the party’s youth wing, there has been speculation that she is grooming him for the top job. In 2014, he won the Lok Sabha polls from the South 24 Parganas constituency in West Bengal on a Trinamool Congress ticket.

However, at 29, Abhishek Banerjee is virtually a political novice and has a long way to go before he can handle party affairs.

Family fiefdom

Apart from this single-proprietorship of sorts, many other parties have established a family fiefdom, so that the reins remain within the bloodline and control largely remains in the hands of the matriarch or patriarch.

For instance, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayum Singh Yadav made way for his son Akhilesh Yadav in the 2012 assembly election in Uttar Pradesh, while Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad Yadav has also launched both his sons – Tejaswi Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav – in politics. While Tejaswi Yadav is the deputy chief minister of Bihar, Tej Pratap Yadav is the health minister in Nitish Kumar’s cabinet.

Up north in Punjab, Shiromani Akali Dal leader and Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal appointed his son Sukhbir Badal as the deputy chief minister. National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah handed over the reins to son Omar Abdullah, who has served on term as chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir and is now leader of the Opposition.

The late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed of the People’s Democratic Party had groomed his daughter, Mehbooba Mufti, and named her his heir apparent. After his death in January, there was little doubt that Mehbooba Mufti would succeed him as chief minister.

In Maharashtra, meanwhile, the Shiv Sena remains synonymous with the founding family, the Thackerays, while Janata Dal (Secular), prominent in Karnataka and Kerala, has stayed within the control of founder HD Deve Gowda and his family. On the national level, the dynasty politics of the Congress are well-known, and the Grand Old Party has been held by the Gandhi family since Independence.