Days after several of her loyalists were denied BJP ticket for the November 25 Rajasthan Assembly election, former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje received support from a section of the party workers, who gathered at her residence here on Saturday.
Amid signs of Ms. Raje being marginalised within the party, her supporters met her, raised slogans hailing her as their leader and assured her of their solidarity with her political moves in future. The gathering was perceived as an attempt to get ticket for the leaders close to her in the upcoming lists of candidates.
Miffed aspirants
The first list comprising 41 candidates, released on October 9, did not have the names of several aspirants considered staunch supporters of Ms. Raje. Some of them are reportedly looking at contesting as Independent candidates in the constituencies which they have served for long.
While former Ministers Narpat Singh Rajvi and Rajpal Singh Shekhawat have expressed their displeasure at denial of ticket from their seats in Jaipur district, Ms. Raje’s loyalists Anita Singh and Bhawani Singh Rajawat have announced their plans to fight the polls as Independents from Nagar (Bharatpur) and Ladpura (Kota).
The BJP’s indecisive approach on Ms. Raje’s precise role in the election – after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the party symbol, lotus, would be its only face in the State – is likely to create difficulties for the official candidates. Ms. Raje’s supporters in almost every Assembly constituency are set to challenge the selection of nominees.
Ms. Raje, a five-time MP, has so far refrained from issuing any official statement in the matter, though she said at a meeting of the BJP’s core committee here on Friday that the party workers should get preference in the upcoming lists of candidates. She also said that the party rebels who fought the 2018 election as well as the leaders who had recently shifted from the Congress to the BJP should not be given ticket.
The ticket aspirants who could not make it to the party’s first list have raised a banner of revolt mainly in the seven seats where sitting MPs have been fielded. The party workers have opined that the MPs were “parachute candidates” brought in without considering the dynamics in the constituencies and without consulting the local leaders.
Political analysts in Rajasthan have wondered if Ms. Raje, waiting to come to the party’s mainstream for the last five years, would maintain silence even after the release of second list of candidates. Senior party leaders such as Arun Singh, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Chandrashekhar, Vijaya Rahatkar and Satish Poonia, have spoken to the ticket claimants who voiced their resentment.
While Ms. Raje’s supporters are apprehensive of her political irrelevance during the electoral battle, the gradual rise of Rajsamand MP Diya Kumari – fielded as the BJP candidate from Vidyadhar Nagar in Jaipur – has led to speculations that she could be considered a chief ministerial candidate in the event of the party’s victory. Ms. Raje was projected as the CM face in the 2003 Assembly election and was appointed the State’s first woman Chief Minister.
