As India wraps up its elections, one name stands out. Still.
BANGALORE, India — In India’s gargantuan elections, there is magic in the name Gandhi.It is the one appellation that eclipses all others as 1.37 million electronic voting machines record the choices of 720 million eligible voters in 830,000 polling stations across the country.
The Gandhi family has ruled India for 37 of the last 62 years of its free existence.
And as the month-long polling ends this weekend and judgment day nears, it is increasingly clear that the Gandhi name will continue to hold sway over the destiny of a country of 1.1 billion people.
“In a politics divided by region and religion, language and caste, it is the only name that transcends all divides,” said Ramachandra Guha, historian and author of the bestselling book “India After Gandhi."
"No one else can claim to stand for the whole country as the Gandhis.”
In the bewildering assortment of parties and personalities, most Indians find it hard to connect one Gandhi to the other.
None of the modern-day Gandhis is related to Mahatma Gandhi, who fought and won India’s freedom through a non-violent struggle. But they have certainly benefited from the charisma and luster that rubs off via the linkage.
“The Gandhi name is universally known and inspiring,” said Rajeev Gowda, a Bangalore-based politician who belongs to the Congress Party. “It touches a particularly powerful chord among India’s poor because of Indira Gandhi’s poverty alleviation programs,” he said.
The modern-day Gandhis are descendants of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru whose daughter Indira married journalist-turned-politician, Feroze Gandhi. Indira Gandhi went on to become prime minister.
Following her grisly assassination at the hands of her Sikh bodyguards, her son Rajiv Gandhi was elected prime minister. He too was brutally assassinated by a suicide bomber.
(Rajiv Gandhi at an election campaign meeting on May 5, 1991. Reuters)