Why do the curiously interesting lives of Indian ‘single’ politicos have no bearing on their success?India is in the thick of its most bitterly fought general election after 1977, but on one potentially combustible issue there seems to be a code of silence in force. The personal lives of our politicians are rarely dragged into public discourse, which is ironical considering the sweeping majority of singletons in positions of prominence in Indian politics.A news anchor did remind her followers on Twitter that BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi had married Jashodaben when both were 17, but left her three years later, without divorcing her. Now, the retired school teacher lives alone and unacknowledged.Not even his worst critics latched on to the anchor’s attempt to make the issue the focal point of a campaign to restore the dignity of women.Modi’s principal opponent, Rahul Gandhi, has stayed single, almost in the mould of a man wedded to the nation. First, there was news of a US-based Spanish girlfriend named Veronique.Not long ago, Delhi was agog with the story that Rahul was seeing the Dubai-based granddaughter of King Zahir Shah, who ruled Afghanistan for 40 years. But the lady in question, Noal Zaher, set the rumour mills at rest by marrying the scion of Egypt’s old royal family.The classic case of a singleton politician’s personal life making no difference to his political career is that of the country’s 10th PM, Atal Bihari Vajpayee (who, incidentally, was heading the government when another singleton, APJ Abdul Kalam, was President).After his first election to the Lok Sabha from Balarampur (UP) in 1957, when Vajpayee moved to Delhi, he re-established contact with Rajkumari Kaul, with whom he had a romantic relationship during their days at Lakshmibai College, Gwalior.Rajkumari was by then married to BN Kaul, who taught English at Ramjas College. Vajpayee moved into their home, and even adopted their daughters as his foster children. One of them, Namita, who is married to hotelier Ranjan Bhattacharya, was Vajpayee’s official hostess during his term as PM. There was more than enough chatter about this unusual living arrangement, but Rajkumari Kaul cleared the air in her only media interview. “Both Atalji and I never felt the need to offer apologetic explanations to my husband once the dirty rumours began,” she said.Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa first made national headlines in 1988 when she was thrown out of mentor MG Ramachandran’s funeral cortege by his wife, Vaikom Narayani Janaki Ramachandran. Janaki accused Jayalalithaa of stealing MGR’s affections and misusing her proximity to him, but the people of Tamil Nadu (and the AIADMK) chose her over the outraged widow.Mayawati’s closeness to her political guru, Kanshi Ram, did give rise to speculation, but it did not stop her from becoming the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh four times. Uma Bharti’s romantic involvement with KN Govindacharya, BJP’s one-time ideologue now banished from the party, has not jettisoned her political fortunes. In Rajasthan, meanwhile, no one really cares for Vasundhara Raje’s long relationship with former cricketer and businessman Michael Dalvi as long as she delivers the goods.West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee seems to be above any romantic affiliations and her Odisha counterpart, Naveen Patnaik, has succeeded in keeping his private life very private, but they are the other faces of the supremacy of singletons in Indian politics. Do the people of India equate being single with being incorruptible? If you hear Modi tom-tom his singleton status, you’d start believing in this theory.