(L to R) Ahmed Patel; Arun Jaitley; Mulayam Singh Yadav
Credit: PTI Images
New Delhi: From the ‘ultimate backroom boy’ Ahmed Patel to ‘spin master’ Arun Jaitley, a clutch of leaders who steered the election discourse and strategy in the past few decades, including in 2019, are being missed in this poll season.
Some like BSP supremo Mayawati are conspicuous by their absence while leaders like Patel, Jaitley, ‘weathervane’ Ramvilas Paswan, ‘socialist patriarch’ Mulayam Singh Yadav and ‘purse keeper’ Motilal Vohra have died.
The intriguing absence is that of Mayawati, who has left it to her nephew and heir apparent Akash to be the faces of the party that once considered the main custodian of Dalit votes. None from the BSP will tell why Mayawati is keeping a low profile though speculation abounds.
Except for occasional posts on X, she has left the campaigning to Akash. In the run up to this edition of the Lok Sabha polls, she took to the microblogging site several times to make it clear that her party was not going to join the Opposition I.N.D.I.A. group.
BJP stalwart and former deputy prime minister LK Advani and former Kerala chief minister and once a CPM star campaigner in Kerala VS Achuthanandan, a centenarian, are also out of action.
Congress is feeling the absence of late Patel, who virtually ran the party affairs and electioneering, as the party is left without an astute political backroom boy to deal with rebels and finances. Patel died in November 2020.
Same was the case with Vora, who managed the grand old party's finances for years. One who knew the intricacies of north Indian politics, Vora who died in December 2020 also advised top Congress leadership over the years.
Another national leader who is no more is Ramvilas Paswan, who was nicknamed ‘weathervane’ for his ability to see where the wind was blowing and to adjust his political stance. Paswan, who made way for his son Chirag to take the mantle of his party, breathed his last in October 2020.
The BJP would be missing Arun Jaitley, its strategist par excellence who could spin narratives. Jaitley was not in the pink of health during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls but his inputs were sought after by the party leadership more often.
Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav is another leader who would be missed in this election. A Hindi heartland politician, Yadav could read the political tea leaves well.
Former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, who contested the 2019 polls, and former external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, who opted out of the contest, also breathed their last within months of the conclusion of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.