Facing internal feuds and tussle over the leadership issues, the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party in Rajasthan has kicked off the campaign for the Assembly byelections in four constituencies, the dates for which are yet to be announced. A series of party workers’ meetings have been planned in the run-up to the bypolls.
The State unit has been confronted with factionalism since the formation of an outfit supporting former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and a section of the party leaders demanding that she be declared the chief ministerial candidate for the 2023 Assembly election. The BJP has officially deprecated the attempts to project any individual as the CM.
While the BJP has given importance to Ms. Raje’s detractors for the last several months and even appointed some of them to important organisational posts, the party has sought to put up a united front ahead of the byelections, expected to be held in March. The first meeting of the workers of the front organisations was held at Sujangarh in Churu district on Tuesday.
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State president Satish Poonia, who addressed the meeting after offering prayers at the nearby Salasar Balaji temple, said the party was working hard to finish the trend of Congress and BJP being elected alternately every five years. “We are committed to making the BJP an indomitable force. We will strengthen the ideology of nationalism to ensure our party’s victory.”
A large number of workers of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) Morcha, Mahila Morcha, Minority Morcha and Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha attended the meeting. The Sujangarh Assembly seat fell vacant after the death of Congress MLA and Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Bhanwarlal Meghwal on November 16, 2020.
The three other constituencies going to the bypolls are Rajsamand, Sahara (Bhilwara) and Vallabhnagar (Udaipur), due to the death of MLAs. While BJP MLA from Rajsamand Kiran Maheshwari died in November 2020, Sahara and Vallabhnagar were represented by Congress MLAs Kailash Trivedi and Gajendra Singh Shaktawat, respectively.
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The strength of the legislators in the 200-member Assembly has come down to 196 after Shaktawat’s death on Wednesday. The BJP is eyeing all the four seats with the study on their caste composition and the identification of the issues affecting the voters.
Mr. Poonia will include two of the Assembly seats in his three-day tour to eight districts starting on Thursday. He will visit Rajsamand on January 22 and Sahara the next day after offering prayers in the famous Tripura Sundari and Shrinath temples. Deputy Leader of Opposition Rajendra Rathore and other senior leaders are likely to accompany him.