Seven Members of Parliament, including Rajya Sabha member Kirodi Lal Meena, were among the 41 candidates by the BJP for the Assembly election in Rajasthan, as per the first list released on October 9. The list was made public soon after the announcement of poll schedule in five States.
Neither former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje nor any of her supporters have found a place on the list of candidates. Ms. Raje’s prominent supporters Narpat Singh Rajvi and Rajpal Singh Shekhawat were replaced by two MPs at their respective seats, Vidyadhar Nagar and Jhotwara, both in Jaipur district.
Rajsamand MP Diya Kumari will contest the polls from Vidyadhar Nagar and Jaipur Rural MP Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore from Jhotwara. While Mr. Rajvi is a sitting MLA, Mr. Shekhawat was defeated by Lalchand Kataria of Congress in the 2018 Assembly election. Both of them were Ministers in the Vasundhara Raje regime.
Ms. Kumari is a member of the erstwhile royal family of Jaipur. Other Parliamentarians fielded by the BJP for the November 23 election are Alwar MP Balaknath (Tijara), Ajmer MP Bhagirath Chaoudhary (Kishangarh), Jhunjhunu MP Narendra Kumar (Mandawa) and Jalore-Sirohi MP Devji Patel (Sanchore). Rajya Sabha Member Mr. Meena has been given a ticket from Sawai Madhopur.
Retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Chandramohan Meena has been fielded from Bassi in Jaipur district. A BJP spokesperson said the party’s central election committee had approved the candidates’ names after a meeting held on October 1.
Significantly, the majority of the 41 seats in the 200-member House are such where the BJP candidates had lost in 2018. The candidates fielded from the seats reserved for Scheduled Castes are Santosh Meghwal (Sujangarh), Premchand Bairwa (Dudu), Jairam Jatav (Alwar Rural), Bahadur Singh Koli (Weir), Rajkumari Jatav (Hindon) and Arjun Lal Garg (Bilara).
