Dear Reader,

Dynastic politics, or party nepotism, is not new. Nor is it confined to any one party, though the degree varies. What is new is the implosion triggered by dynastic disputes within political parties.

The massive divisions in the Trinamool over the past few days, a corollary to the party’s debacle in the State election, which the rebels now attribute to the rise of Mamata Banerjee’s nephew, Abhishek Banerjee, at the expense of senior leaders, have raised many eyebrows.

What offered a clear glimpse of how the game is being played was the gathering of rebel Trinamool Lok Sabha members at the New Delhi residence of Union Minister and the BJP’s in-charge for the West Bengal Assembly election, Bhupendra Yadav, along with State Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, on June 8.

The Trinamool splitting at the Centre as well as in the State, with MLA Ritabrata Banerjee claiming the support of 58 of 80 MLAs and Lok Sabha MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar claiming the support of 20 of 28 party members in the Lower House, baffled political experts, as signs of any massive discontent within the party had scarcely been visible. Another salvo came from Kalyan Banerjee, who replaced Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar as chief whip in May, triggering her resignation from all party posts. Now, Kalyan Banerjee has issued an ultimatum to Mamata Banerjee. Saying that Abhishek Banerjee destroyed the party, Banerjee in effect told Mamata to choose between Abhishek and party veterans like himself. He threatened to quit unless Abhishek is stripped of all leadership positions. Other leaders reiterated the charge, saying it was Abhishek’s arrogance and total command that were responsible for the mess in the Trinamool.

Rajya Sabha member Sagarika Ghose, however, scoffed at the allegations, asking whether the rebel members would have made the same remarks had the Trinamool Congress won the State election. She asserted that there is no Trinamool without Mamata Banerjee, because Mamata Banerjee is the Trinamool. Party Lok Sabha MPs Kirti Azad and Shatrughan Sinha, and Rajya Sabha MP Babul Supriyo, among others, stood by Banerjee as the resignation spree continued.

How much of the blame for the imminent split in the Trinamool should be shared by Abhishek Banerjee is unclear. What is clearer is the encouragement being extended to the rebels by the ruling dispensation at the Centre.

The episode in West Bengal bears an uncanny resemblance to the Shiv Sena saga in Maharashtra, where Sena leader Eknath Shinde led a rebellion against Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray in 2022, toppled his government, and succeeded in securing the Shiv Sena name and symbol for his faction with the backing of a majority of MLAs and MPs. Shinde became Chief Minister for the remainder of the Thackeray government’s term in coalition with the BJP, which later replaced him after winning the Assembly election under his leadership in 2024.

In Maharashtra, the BJP was seen as active not only during the 2022 split of the Shiv Sena but also as far back as 2006, when Raj Thackeray floated the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, opposing the handover of the party’s reins to his cousin Uddhav Thackeray. The BJP kept courting the rebel Thackeray, praising him from time to time. Raj Thackeray declared unconditional support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP before the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Yet, since 2025, there have been signs of a patch-up between the two Thackerays. Curiously, media reports in 2021 said that a Hindu religious leader had advised Raj to join hands with the BJP. A year later, Shiv Sena spokesperson Manisha Kayande remarked that the MNS was receiving booster doses from the BJP.

In July 2023, when Ajit Pawar broke away from his uncle’s leadership and split the party, the BJP welcomed him with open arms and made him Deputy Chief Minister in the BJP-led Mahayuti coalition government. Earlier, in 2019, the BJP had also encouraged Ajit Pawar’s bid to form a government with Devendra Fadnavis, but it collapsed within 80 hours when Pawar failed to secure the required majority. What began in 2019 finally came to fruition in 2023.

We saw a similar scenario in Bihar in 2021, when the late Ram Vilas Paswan’s brother, Pashupati Kumar Paras, walked away with five of the party’s six Lok Sabha members and was promptly rewarded with a Union Cabinet berth. By 2024, the BJP realised that the mass base lay with Chirag Paswan and patched up with him, leaving Paras in the lurch. Through this difficult phase, even as Chirag repeatedly voiced his anguish, he never stopped proclaiming his loyalty to Modi. In both the sidelining and the return of Chirag, the BJP’s hand was hard to miss.

Similarly, in 2016, when Mulayam Singh Yadav’s son Akhilesh and brother Shivpal were embroiled in a public feud, the BJP did not merely watch from the sidelines. It actively encouraged Shivpal Yadav, and that phase continued before and after the patch-up between the nephew and uncle in 2022 following Mulayam Singh Yadav’s death. By then, the BJP had already come to power in 2017, with the ruling Samajwadi Party seen by voters as too busy fighting itself to govern effectively.

While Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath praised Shivpal in May 2022 for keeping alive the ideals of socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia, BJP leader Ramshankar Katheria offered Shivpal a place in the BJP in April 2024. The BJP clearly sees political value in widening the uncle-nephew divide.

In 2022, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s daughter-in-law, Aparna Yadav, joined the BJP. Even before that, the party had been reaching out to her after public differences surfaced between her and Akhilesh Yadav. Aparna is the wife of Prateek Yadav, Mulayam’s son by his second wife, Sadhana Gupta. The BJP hopes to use this connection to breach the Samajwadi Party’s OBC vote bank.

In Bihar, the BJP has also promptly expressed support and sympathy for Lalu Prasad’s elder son, Tej Pratap Yadav, after a family feud spilled into the open. During a visit to Vindhyachal, a religious site in Uttar Pradesh, in May this year, Tej Pratap said he does not support Akhilesh Yadav and would back Chief Minister Adityanath in forming another government in Uttar Pradesh. In November 2025, when he was seen with BJP MP Ravi Kishan of Gorakhpur, speculation about growing proximity gained further ground. Earlier, when Tej Pratap was granted Y-security, since withdrawn, BJP leader Nishikant Dubey had supported the move. Tej Pratap has not joined the BJP, but he heads a separate party, the Janshakti Janata Dal, which contested 21 seats in Yadav-dominated regions of Bihar, damaging the RJD in several of them.

As the division in the Trinamool plays out, there are strong indications that the rebels could even secure the party symbol and the claim to being the real Trinamool. It is clear that the BJP, which once said its doors were shut to Trinamool leaders, has now opened all its windows as well. The question is whether the rebel Trinamool members will merge with the BJP, or whether the BJP will keep them as an alternative Trinamool, much as it did with the Shiv Sena and the NCP in Maharashtra.

What do you make of this recurring pattern? Is the BJP simply taking advantage of divisions it finds, or has identifying and widening dynastic fault lines become a central feature of its political strategy? Write back and tell us.

Until the next inheritance dispute goes national,

Anand Mishra

Political Editor,Frontline