The Bharatiya Janata Party on arch 2 announced 15 candidates, including eight sitting MPs, for the Lok Sabha election in Rajasthan in its first list released in New Delhi. The party gave tickets to two veteran leaders who switched over from Congress recently, besides fielding five new faces in the State.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will contest the election again from Kota, BJP State president C.P. Joshi from Chittorgarh, and Union Ministers Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Arjun Ram Meghwal and Kailash Choudhary from Jodhpur, Bikaner and Barmer, respectively. Rajya Sabha Member and Union Minister Bhupender Yadav has been fielded from the Yadav-dominated Alwar constituency, forming part of the National Capital Region.
Veteran tribal leader Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya and Jat leader Jyoti Mirdha, who crossed over from Congress to the BJP, have been given tickets in the constituencies where they wield a significant influence. Mr. Malviya, who was a Minister in the previous Congress regime, will contest the polls from Banswara, and Ms. Mirdha, who was elected to Lok Sabha in 2009 as a Congress candidate, will fight from Nagaur.
The BJP had fielded Ms. Mirdha as its candidate from Nagaur in the 2023 State Assembly election as well, but she lost to Harendra Mirdha of Congress. On the other hand, Mr. Malviya was elected on the Congress ticket from Banswara district’s Bagidora seat for the fourth straight term in 2023. He was earlier elected an MP from Banswara in 1998.
The party sprang a surprise by fielding Devendra Jhajharia, the first Indian Paralympics player to win two gold medals, as its candidate from Churu after denying ticket to sitting two-time MP Rahul Kaswan. Mr. Jhaharia, 42, has earned distinction as a javelin thrower and is known as the country’s most decorated Paralympics player, having won gold medals in 2004 in Athens and in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.
The other MPs who have been tickets again are Sumendhanand Saraswati (Sikar), P.P. Chaudhary (Pali) and Dushyant Singh (Jhalawar-Baran). Mr. Singh, who is the son of former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, has been elected from the constituency for four terms.
Ramswarup Koli has been named the BJP candidate from Bharatpur, Lumbaram Choudhary from Jalore and Mannalal Rawat from Udaipur. The party had won all 25 Lok Sabha seats in the State in 2014 and 24 in 2019 when Rashtriya Loktantrik Party’s Hanuman Beniwal won the Nagaur seat in alliance with the BJP.
