New Delhi, Sept. 22: Dynastic politics in the Congress has shown up again in the electoral debut of party MP Ajay Maken?s cousin, but with a twist.

Avantika Maken, daughter of the late Lalit Maken, today filed papers as an Independent candidate for the Rajouri Garden Assembly bypoll. The seat falls within South Delhi, once her father?s Lok Sabha constituency.

An office-bearer of the Congress-backed National Students Union of India, Avantika did not make it as an official nominee after Ajay asked the party not to give the Rajouri Garden ticket to anyone from his family.

Ajay, also party in-charge of Maharashtra elections, had written to this effect to Delhi state in-charge Ashok Gehlot.

Ajay?s move to exclude relatives from the family?s political legacy did not go down well with Avantika.

She was particularly peeved with the letter, local Congress sources said, as she had been waiting for a while to make her electoral debut in Delhi, where the party is dominated by dynasties from the Nehru-Gandhis to the Dikshits.

?It is Ajay Maken?s conspiracy not to allow family members to contest elections,? Avantika alleged.

?He is taking advantage of my father?s sacrifice. The people who should take advantage are waiting on the side,? she added.

Ajay, however, was trying to quash rumours that his wife, Radhika, was trying for a Rajouri Garden debut.

The family already has an MLA from Delhi ? Anjali Rai, who is Ajay?s aunt and a popular television newsr-eader.

Avantika came into the limelight last year after a court awarded the death penalty to her parents? killers.

Lalit and wife Geetanjali, the daughter of the late President Shankar Dayal Sharma, were assassinated by Punjab militants in the aftermath of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots here.

Ajay, whose political career began as a president of the Delhi University Students? Union, was pitch- forked into politics as a consequence.

Avantika, barely six at the time of assassination, was the sole survivor of the attack.