Posted on 04/26/2014 3:16:32 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Indian premier saddened by development as entire family disowns Daljit Singh Kohli for his act of betrayal
Amritsar: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s extended family, which is settled here, has virtually disowned his youngest brother Daljit Singh Kohli for joining the rival Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Kohli, 60, joined the BJP on Friday during the party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s rally. He was introduced to the crowd by the Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal was welcomed by Modi.
“Dr Manmohan Singh’s brother has joined BJP and this will increase our strength. We welcome him to the BJP. This is not a party only of membership but of relationship. We will form a close relationship,” Modi said.
Kohli is a textile exporter and is youngest of the 10 siblings. He is the half-brother of the Indian premier, whose father migrated to Amritsar from the other side of Punjab after India-Pakistan partition in 1947. While the prime minister on Saturday expressed his disappointment at the development, he said he has no control over his siblings.
“I feel very sad. But I have no control over them. They are all adults,” Singh told media on the sidelines of a function in the Indian capital New Delhi yesterday.
Kohli’s decision to join the rival camp has already become a talking point here. It has become a cause of major embarrassment for former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh, who is contesting the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat as a nominee of the Congress party.
Kohli’s induction into the BJP was timed to create maximum impact especially amongst the Sikh voters. His family, however, was left red-faced by the development.
“The whole family is shocked. We have been associated with the Congress [party] from the very beginning and will remain loyal to the Congress [party]. What he [Daljit Singh Kohli] has done is extremely wrong. This is shameful and should not have been done,” Mandeep Singh, the prime minister’s nephew, said on Saturday.
Singh’s brother Surjit Singh Kohli clarified that except for Daljit, all family members stand with the prime minister, adding that they are a big family of six sisters and four brothers.
Singh’s entry is expected to give a boost to prospects of the senior central BJP leader Arun Jaitley, who is making his electoral debut as common candidate of the state’s ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP alliance, which is battling an anti-incumbency wave in the state.
The BJP’s plan to split the top families of the Congress party has so far met with success.
Earlier, it had roped in Congress party president Sonia Gandhi’s estranged sister-in-law Maneka Gandhi and her son Varun.
While Sonia and her son Rahul Gandhi are seeking re-election from Rae Bareli and Amethi seats respectively, Maneka and her son Varun Gandhi are in the fray, running for the Pilibhit and Sultanpur seats in Uttar Pradesh.
Third world “democracies” = elite families fighting for their chance to rule. Oh wait, same as “ours”. Welcome to Clinton vs Bush 2016.
In REAL terms does this mean anything, as in are any of the major political parties in contention anything resembling “conservative” or at least “free-market based”? Or are they just degrees of socialism/communism?
Indian politics has so many varials, one of whom is the economic philosophy.
Setting aside religious and caste politics, BJP is closer to economic liberalism while Congress is plain socialistic/crony capitalism. BJP is also social conservative (with Hindu angle, of course) while Congress is avowed secularists.
To sum up, BJP is the Hindu rich business man’s ruthless party, while Congress is the socialistic secularist big tent party of persecuted minorities and the poor, of course.
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