The Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) on Saturday entered the fray in Rajasthan with the announcement of its first list, comprising 10 candidates, for the November 25 Assembly election. RLP convener and Nagaur MP Hanuman Beniwal will contest the polls at Khinvsar, from where he had resigned after being elected to Lok Sabha in 2019.
The RLP released its list two days after entering into an alliance with the Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) led by Chandrashekhar Azad. Mr. Beniwal said the two parties would jointly wage a struggle to secure the rights of Dalits and backward and underprivileged people. The new alliance is likely to put up a fight at about 100 of the 200 Assembly seats.
Sitting RLP MLAs Pukhraj Garg and Indira Devi Bawari have been fielded from their constituencies, Bhopalgarh and Merta, respectively, while Khinvsar MLA Narayan Beniwal – younger brother of Mr. Hanuman Beniwal – has been dropped.
The junior Mr. Beniwal, who had won the Khinvsar seat in the Assembly by-election in 2019, is likely to be fielded later in some other constituency. The party has given tickets to Rewat Ram Panwar from Kolayat, Lachharam Badrada from Parbatsar and Ajay Trivedi from Jodhpur city. All three of them had left Congress and joined the RLP a few weeks ago.
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Mr. Panwar, who was elected as a Congress MLA in 1998, will be locked in a contest with two-time MLA and Minister of State for Power Bhanwar Singh Bhati, fielded by Congress, at Kolayat in Bikaner district.
Other candidates named on the list are Umeda Ram Beniwal (Baytu), Lal Chand Mund (Sardarshahar), Mahesh Saini (Sanganer) and Badri Lal Jat (Sahara).
The RLP was a constituent of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and Mr. Hanuman Beniwal had won as an MP with the BJP’s support. The RLP quit the NDA and withdrew its support to the BJP-led government at the Centre in December 2020 after the passage of the controversial agriculture sector Bills in the Parliament.
Mr. Hanuman Beniwal, who as a BJP legislator was a vocal critic of former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, had formed the RLP in 2018 with the support of Jats, who constitute a politically powerful community in more than a dozen Lok Sabha constituencies in the State. The party contested 57 seats in the 2018 Assembly election and won in three constituencies.
The RLP will conclude its ongoing ‘Satta Sankalp Yatra’ with an election rally at Vidyadhar Nagar Stadium in Jaipur on Sunday. Both Mr. Hanuman Beniwal and Mr. Azad will address the rally, which is expected to be attended by a large number of party workers.
