Rumours have been doing rounds in UP’s political corridors that Junior Bachchan could contest the Lok Sabha elections from Prayagraj. Abhishek Bachchan might reportedly contest on a Samajwadi Party ticket from the seat. SP leadership is reportedly gathering feedback from local leaders on the matter.
However, an SP leader has reportedly denied any such developments saying that there has been no such recommendation and the reports are mere rumors. The Bachchan family is linked to SP with Jaya Bachchan as its MP in Rajya Sabha.
Prayagraj is the birthplace of Big B from where he too contested on a Congress ticket in 1984 and defeated Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna of Lok Dal. Bahuguna’s daughter, Rita Bahuguna Joshi is currently a BJP MP from Prayagraj.
Amitabh Bachchan had won with 68% votes whereas Bahuguna got only 25% votes. 2024 might be a sequel to the 1984 contest if BJP’s Rita Bahuguna Joshi faces Abhishek Bachchan as the SP candidate from the seat.
While SP leader from Yamunapur Pappu Lal Nishad reportedly said this is a mere discussion, another party leader Saiyyad Iftekhar Hussain said there’s still time for general elections. Other reports say the rumors have been rubbished by Anup Sanda saying that Abhishek Bachchan is neither joining SP nor contesting on its ticket from Prayagraj.
The Bachchans and their shift from Congress to SP
The Bachchans have been in and out of political circles time and again. The ties between the Gandhis and Bachchans go back three generations and almost six decades.
The ties between the two families can be traced back to Amitabh Bachchan’s father, Dr. Harivansh Rai Bachchan, who worked in India’s Foreign Ministry as a Hindi Officer. Former Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru apparently had high regard for Dr Bachchan, which resonated in the family ties as well.
Harivansh’s wife and Amitabh’s mother, Teji Bachchan, became a close friend of Nehru’s daughter, Indira. As they moved to Delhi, Teji Bachchan worked as a social activist, and her friendship with Indira Gandhi became deeper.
Their friendship between the two families reached its peak when Bachchans lent moral support to Rajiv Gandhi in the late 1960s during his marriage with Sonia, which Indira opposed. When Rajiv Gandhi was courting the young Italian girl, Sonia Antonio Maino, Teji Bachchan acted as a mediator between the two families as Indira disapproved of their relationship.
In 1968, when Sonia Gandhi arrived in India as Rajiv Gandhi’s fiancee, it was the young Amitabh Bachchan who drove to Palam airport to receive her. When the marriage was finally fixed in 1969, Sonia Gandhi and her family moved in briefly and stayed at the Bachchans’ New Delhi residence at 13, Willingdon Crescent, to learn about Indian customs and traditions from Teji.
The friendship between the two families continued throughout the next decade. It was speculated then that both families had held wide-ranging discussions regarding Big B’s possibility of entering full-time politics. However, the relations touched a new high in 1984 when Rajiv Gandhi persuaded Amitabh Bachchan to enter politics and contest the election from Allahabad on a Congress ticket.
Eventually, Amitabh Bachchan was given a Congress ticket in 1984 and won from Allahabad with a handsome margin. However, things started taking a different turn in the late 1980s when the Bofors scandal was exposed and many, including Rajiv Gandhi and Amitabh Bachchan, were alleged to have received kickbacks.
This was the turning point when Bachchan started distancing himself from Rajiv to avoid tarnishing his image. Three years later, Amitabh quit politics and resigned after a newspaper reported his involvement in the Bofors scam.
In 1987, the Bachchan family also on board the INS Viraat where the Gandhi family used the love aircraft carrier of the Indian Navy as their personal family vehicle for their holidays in an uninhabited Island of Lakshadweep.
In the early 1990s, the relationship between families turned sour after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. The Gandhi family was expecting Amitabh Bachchan to join the Congress party to assist Sonia Gandhi, which he clearly refused, citing his engagements.
A few years later, when Big B was in a financial crisis, he felt cheated by the Gandhi family, who did not come to his rescue. The mutual feeling of betrayal got complicated and led to further events of betrayals and rifts, which widened especially after the Bachchan family’s ties with Amar Singh became stronger.
