The Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand in November will determine the fate of the Pawars, the Thackerays and the Sorens, three of India’s premier “democratic dynasties,” a term Kanchan Chandra used as the title of the seminal work she edited. Each of the three has undergone the process of fission. Two of them have experienced splits in the parties they have been synonymous with. All three will have to demonstrate they still enjoy the loyalty of ethnic groups on whose support their power and prestige grew.

Fission poses an existential challenge to the Pawars, for both their dynasty and the Nationalist Congress Party, the party they led, have split. Founded by Sharad Pawar, the fissure within the dynasty emerged over the issue of succession. As his daughter Supriya Sule’s public profile grew, so did, understandably, his nephew Ajit’s anxieties, for patriarchs or matriarchs of democratic dynasties prefer to pass the baton to their children than to their husbands and wives or to nephews and nieces.