Call it what you will — parivarwaad, vanshwaad, or bhai-bhateejawaad — the role of political dynasties in India is hardly new. But it is a pervasive phenomenon staring us in the face today, no longer a story of just a handful of families that have dominated politics over the decades, such as the Gandhis, the Abdullahs, and the Karunanidhi clan.

One look at Maharashtra, which votes on Wednesday, and it suddenly hits you that virtually every district is dominated by one or even two families that have come to acquire huge political influence over the years, often more than the clout of their parties.

When a family changes its party affiliation — and this is now happening all the time in an increasingly ideologically flexible political space — their followers shift with them. Because they are old families and have known each other over generations, they also come to each other’s aid, as and when needed. And when the family clout increases and the stakes rise, political wars erupt within the families.

The Pawars and the Thackerays have dominated the political scene in Maharashtra for close to half a century. Today there is Sharad Pawar, the patriarch and Nationalist Congress Party (SP) chief; his daughter Supriya Sule, and grand nephews Rohit and Yugendra on the one side. On the other side of the divide is Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar, one of the Deputy Chief Ministers, and his wife Sunetra who fought a bitter battle against Sule in the Lok Sabha elections. Yugendra is taking on Ajit in Baramati, a seat the latter has been winning since 1991, and represents the third generation of Pawars coming to the fore.

Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray chose his son Uddhav as his political heir instead of his nephew Raj Thackeray who went on to form the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. In the elections, their sons Aaditya and Amit will be among the candidates whose fate will be decided by voters.

Travel to Beed and one will see the Munde family controls it. The late Gopinath Munde’s daughter Pankaja who is in the BJP and her cousin Dhananjay who is in the NCP of Ajit Pawar are the major players there. Dhananjay defeated Pankaja in 2019 in Beed but this time both are on the same side and he has been fielded from Parli. Pankaja’s sister Pritam is a former MP who represented Beed from 2019 to 2024.

Travel further in Marathwada and there is the Deshmukh family in Latur, considered the stronghold of the late Vilasrao Deshmukh, a two-time CM. His two sons Amit and Dheeraj are contesting from the district while their other brother Riteish, an actor, is campaigning for them. Up against Amit in Latur is a member of another high-profile political family. The BJP has fielded Archana Patil Chakurkar, the daughter-in-law of former Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil who was once considered a possible choice for Rashtrapati Bhavan. The veteran Congressman has blessed his “bahu” even though she is on the wrong side politically.

Nanded is the fiefdom of Ashok Chavan, the son of former CM Shankarrao Chavan who also served as Union Home Minister in the P V Narasimha Rao Cabinet. Chavan joined the BJP earlier this year and in this election, his daughter Sreejaya is contesting on a BJP ticket from the family bastion of Bhokar.

Then there are the Gavits in tribal-dominated Nandurbar, the Chhagan Bhujbal clan in Nashik, the Narayan Ranes in Konkan, and the Vijaysinh Mohite Patils in Solapur. The list is only illustrative and according to some estimates, there could be at least as many prominent political families in Maharashtra as there are districts in the state (36).

Many of the political families in the state — and this is widely known — gained heft because of the milk or sugar cooperatives and banks they set up and the vast network of educational institutions they built in their areas. This enabled them to create a system of patronage, quasi-economic in nature, and enabled them to reach out to communities with help that almost paralleled what the government provided. With a government that seemed distant and the political party offices often unresponsive, many looked to these families to turn the levers of power on their behalf and extract what they needed from the system.

In many an instance, the voter shows a preference for a member of a political family because they believe its patronage network, which can informally negotiate on their behalf, will continue to help them if the baton is passed onto someone in the family rather than someone else.

What is true of Maharashtra is also true in varying degrees of other states, but for reasons that may be different. Election strategist Prashant Kishor, who launched the Jan Suraaj two months ago after completing a statewide padayatra in search of a political alternative, revealed not long ago that if a list were to be compiled of all the MPs and MLAs from different parties in Bihar one would find “they belong to 1,250 political families” in the state.

That even those such as Mayawati or Mamata Banerjee, who got to the pinnacle of power in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal without belonging to a political family, should choose their nephews as their political heirs, tells its own story.

While the Congress is at a disadvantage when it comes to dynastic politics — it can hardly take a moral stand against family rule while being led by the Nehru-Gandhi family — the BJP has constantly attacked dynastic politics but has not discouraged “dynasts” from becoming MPs, MLAs, ministers or even office-bearers. And that list is not small.

Most of the smaller, regional parties are essentially family enterprises, be it Mulayam Singh Yadav-founded Samajwadi Party, Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, or the late Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party now split between his son and brother. In the South, Chandrababu Naidu’s son Nara Lokesh is on the rise in his Telugu Desam Party, K Chandrashekar Rao’s son K T Rama Rao calls the shots in the Bharat Rashtra Samithi, and Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin’s son Udhayanidhi Stalin is playing a pivotal role in the DMK.

We have come a long way from the days when there was a buzz that Pratibha Advani might be given the party ticket from Gandhinagar, which her father L K Advani used to represent. When I asked Advani about it, he said something to this effect, “Having opposed dynasty politics all my life I cannot bring myself to do it, much as I want the best for her.”

Given that parivarwaad is so prevalent, the question arises: where are we headed and at what cost?

When India became independent, it successfully integrated more than 500 princely states. Today, if Maharashtra is an indicator of the shape of things to come, India’s parliamentary democracy may well get confined to some 500-odd families. And it could happen sooner than we think.

(Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express, has covered the last 11 Lok Sabha elections. She is the author of How Prime Ministers Decide)