Alwar bypoll: Cong, BJP hold road shows
JAIPUR: Both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress held roadshows in Ajmer on Saturday as campaigning drew to an end for three bypolls in the state, viewed as a crucial semi-final before the assembly elections later this year.
By-elections are being held for the Ajmer and Alwar Lok Sabha and Mandalgarh assembly constituencies, for which 55 candidates are in the fray. Polling will be held on January 29. Results will be announced on February 1. Both Alwar and Ajmer have 1.8 million registered voters, and Mandalgarh has 231,000.
The BJP is facing several challenges in these bypolls. It had to face the wrath of the Rajputs in the aftermath of the encounter of gangster Anandpal Singh and the nationwide outrage led by the Shree Rajput Karni Sena over the movie Padmaavat.
Hit by agrarian distress, farmers are unhappy that the government has not yet implemented a loan waiver that it announced in September last year. Issues such as price rise and unemployment also play an important role.
Anticipating a tough contest from the Congress, chief minister Vasundhara Raje has been at the helm of the BJP’S poll campaign, repeatedly touring the three constituencies over the past four months.
State Congress president Sachin Pilot and former chief minister Ashok Gehlot, on the other hand, claimed that the people of the state have lost faith in the BJP government.
In the run up to the polls, the Congress also released a ‘black paper’ that lists what they call the failures of the government.
In Ajmer the BJP has put up Ramswaroop Lamba, son of late MP Sanwarlal Jat, hoping to cash in on sympathy votes for the deceased Jat leader.
The seat was held by Sachin Pilot before he lost it to Jat in the 2014 general elections. Pilot is keen to wrest the seat from the BJP. In Alwar, Congress candidate Dr Karan Singh Yadav faces BJP’S Jaswant Singh Yadav, a minister in the Raje government. Both are Yadavs and a vote split in the community might work well for the Congress.
In Mandalgarh, the BJP’S Shakti Singh Hada, a Rajput, is up against Congress’s Vivek Dhakad. The seat has a large number of Rajput and Dhakad voters. The election is being held after demise of BJP MLA Kirti Kumari.