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  In line: (Left to right) Mandar Mahajan, Parvesh Verma, Akash Vijayvargiya and Kartikeya Singh Chouhan

Captain Mandar Mahajan is a pilot, but flying is not on his mind these days. His focus is on a roadside meeting in Indore, Madhya Pradesh (MP). Parvesh Verma is meeting workers in his office in New Delhi. Abhishek Bhargav spends long hours in office too, when he is not attending electoral rallies in Sagar in MP.

All three — and a great many other political newbies — hope to follow in their father or mother's footsteps, prominent members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Mahajan's mother is state leader and former minister Sumitra Mahajan. Verma's father, Sahib Singh Verma, was the chief minister of Delhi. Bhargav's father, Gopal Bhargav, is the MP minister for social justice, panchayat and rural development.

As Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh gear up for Assembly polls, the BJP's 'baba log' politicians are laying claim to the political legacy of their families. Most of them have been denied tickets for the coming elections, but the offspring all hope to make their electoral debut in the coming years.

'I know that fruits of my labour will follow tomorrow, if not today,' Abhishek Bhargav avers.

The Congress, which has a long line of politico sons and daughters waiting to make their electoral mark (see box), has been accused of nurturing dynasties. The mad rush for tickets in the 2013 Assembly polls demonstrate that many in the BJP are hoisting family flags too — and quite unabashedly.

'The BJP is now a normal party. Dynastic politics is as entrenched in it as any other political party. With regional leaders asserting themselves, the party more often than not has to fall in line,' says Sudha Pai, professor, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.

The party is still to take a decision on Verma's ticket, but he is soldiering on. Supporters crowd his Shalimar Bagh office in Delhi. The bespectacled, 35-year-old Delhi-ite in a spotless white kurta speaks Hindi with a Haryanvi twang, something that endears him to the Jat community that his late father had nurtured.

'This is the life I have chosen. My wife and children complain that I am never at home. But I guess they will get used to it,' the MBA graduate says with a laugh.

Some 1,000 kilometres away, Mahajan, chief flight instructor at the Madhya Pradesh Flying Club, is addressing election rallies with his mother, who is the BJP member of Parliament from Indore. In a T-shirt and trousers, the 42-year-old doesn't look like a stereotypical politician. But Mahajan is looking ahead at a political career. 'I am ready to take up any responsibility that the party gives me,' he says.

The list of aspirants from political families is quite a long one. In Delhi, supporters of the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, want his son Ajay to be fielded from Greater Kailash. Vimal and Harish Khurana — sons of former Delhi chief minister Madan Lal Khurana — are waging a battle of their own as the torchbearers of their late father's legacy.

In Chhattisgarh, chief minister Raman Singh's son Abhishek is being groomed for politics — though he may not fight an election this year. Dipak Sahu, son of BJP ex-MP Tarachand Sahu, has taken up a political career. Yudhveer Singh Judeo, whose father was the former Union minister BJP MP Dilip Singh Judeo, is an MLA and is seeking to retain his seat.

But it's in Madhya Pradesh, which the BJP has ruled for the last 10 years, that parivar politics is at its peak. Industries minister Kailash Vijayvargiya recently posted on Facebook and Twitter that he would like his son, Akash, 29, to take over from him. A management graduate from the Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, he has been active in his father's constituency, Mhow, for the last few months.

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'I just expressed my wish on my son's birthday. Party workers like him and I feel he is a born leader,' says the senior Vijavargiya, who doesn't see this as a form of dynastic politics. 'My son has been working for the party and the cadre feels that he is doing a good job. How is that dynastic politics?'

The minister, however, is clear that his son will be his successor. 'There will be a day when the party will nominate him instead of my pushing for him,' he says.

Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's son is likely to be among them. Right now, 19-year-old Kartikeya is busy in his father's constituency, Budhni. Though he cannot fight elections before he is 25, Kartikey is paving the way for a future in politics.

Observers believe that for the cadre-based BJP, the rise of a generation all ready to claim the legacies of their politician parents, is ironical because the issue of dynasty has been on the party's manifesto for long.

Of course, party leaders stress that there is a difference between dynastic politics in the Congress and in the BJP. 'When we criticise the Congress, it is because of its devotion to a single family,' Rajasthan BJP spokesperson Vimal Katiyar asserts.

The Congress accuses the BJP of hypocrisy. 'If our sons and daughters are not acceptable to the people, they will be rejected. But it doesn't mean that they cannot enter politics,' says state Congress chief Kantilal Bhuria.

Political analysts point out that there is little difference between the BJP and the Congress in the state. 'Except on the issue of communalism, there's not much of a difference. They are the same when it comes to dynastic politics,' Bhopal-based analyst Girija Shankar holds.

To top it, Madhya Pradesh also has a tradition of dynasties. From the Shuklas — starting with the first state chief minister Ravi Shankar Shukla, his two sons Shyama Charan and Vidya Charan and now grandson Amitesh — to the Scindias (from Vijayraje down to her grandson Jyotiraditya), political lineages have played a role in ensuring electoral victories.

Cynics stress that politics is now a lucrative field, which could also explain the mad rush for tickets. But the new kids on the political block say that they are seeking to give a new direction to politics.

'My narrative is development, development and more development,' Abhishek Bhargav asserts, while Parvesh says he plans to continue with his father's mission. 'My father had many dreams for Delhi. My dream is to fulfil them.'

Old words in new bottles?