BJP may field Jat’s kin for Ajmer bypoll

The BJP may field a kin of former union minister Sanwar Lal Jat for a by-election to the Ajmer Lok Sabha seat, likely to be held in December along with Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh assembly polls, party sources said.

BJP Ajmer Dehat president BP Saraswat met state party president Ashok Parnami and urged him to field a kin of Jat whose death has necessitated a by-election within six months.

Jat’s wife, son or daughter could be fielded to garner sympathy votes, the sources said.

Jat’s son Ramswarup Lamba is the BJP general secretary in Ajmer Dehat. Lamba was in the race for a ticket for the Nasirabad assembly by-election in September 2014, but his candidature was rejected because of Narendra Modi’s policy of not giving tickets to family members of the sitting MLAs and MPs. Jat was then the Ajmer MP.

The BJP and the Congress have stakes in the Ajmer seat. Congress Rajasthan chief Sachin Pilot was the Ajmer MP before his defeat in 2014 general elections. After winning all the 25 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan in 2014, a defeat in Ajmer will be a loss of face for the BJP ahead of next year’s assembly polls.

With Saraswat ruling himself out of the race for the Ajmer seat, former Bikaner University vice chancellor CB Gaina and his daughter-in-law Sarita Gaina are other probable BJP candidates.