Rajput challenge for Raje at home
MANDA (JHALAWAR): Addressing a gathering in Manda village of Jhalawar district, Congress candidate Manvendra Singh says he would not have been allowed to step foot into Barmer, the Rajput stronghold and his previous constituency, if he hadn’t done any development work for them.
“You all are very simple that you have been voting for the same people,” Singh, 54, who switched to the Congress from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) two months ago, says.
Singh is taking on chief minister Vasundhara Raje in her home constituency, Jhalrapatan, in the December 7 assembly elections. Raje’s old feud with his father, BJP veteran Jaswant Singh, is well known. The Congress decided to field him against Raje, who has reigned supreme in Jhalrapatan for three decades.
Singh accepts the challenge is tough because the area is not familiar to him. He campaigns 10-12 hours a day, holding nukkad sabhas (street-corner meetings), and appeals to the people to overthrow the “dictatorial government.”
Manda village has no paved road. It has electricity, but villagers say drinking water is scarce. There are no sewer lines and one can find puddles of dirty, stagnant water on the streets.
“Look at the land here and the water. This is a three-crop area, a high rainfall area and yet you have water shortage and drinking water problems,” he says.
“There have been two farmer suicides here, which is shocking. In a high-drought area like ours (Barmer) they still survive, here for a farmer to commit suicide is a tragedy without words.”
Chhabda Jhalawar MP Dushyant Singh is campaigning on behalf of his mother Raje, who is busy criss-crossing the state holding rallies. He knows the constituency and Manvendra is seen as an outsider.
Travelling on the smooth national highway from Jhalawar to Chhabda, Dushyant says, “We are winning all eight assembly seats (in the region), thanks to the development by the CM.”
He says that when Raje first fought an election from here, the Congress governments had neglected the region. Infrastructure, roads, water and irrigation projects have all been carried out by the BJP government, he claims.
Raje will visit Jhalrapatan for a day towards the end of the campaign. “She has treated the people not as constituents but as part of her family. So every party worker is like Raje fighting. Raje is a name which is embedded into the Hadoti belt, especially Baran and Jhalawar,” he says.
How seriously are they taking Manvendra’s candidacy? “An election must be fought like an election. Any election has to be fought with proper planning,” says Dushyant.
In Titarkheda village, about 115 km from Jhalawar, Dushyant addresses a gathering. “If you vote for the BJP, this development work that we have started will continue and you all will benefit,” he says. The CM’s team is putting in long hours, covering 12-13 villages in a day.
Dushyant says Congress has always parachuted candidates from other places to fight the CM. “Manvendra has travelled 700 km from Barmer to Jhalrapatan. He... is a parachute candidate from the Congress. He has no base here.”