Jaipur: Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje is taking no chances as far as her individual electoral victory is concerned. The senior BJP leader, who is contesting from Jhalara Patan Assembly constituency in Jhalawad district for the fourth consecutive time, spent the entire day making door to door contact with voters.
Sources stated that Ms Raje wants to ensure that she wins the seat with a comfortable margin. It is also believed that the lesson from the defeat of Himachal Pradesh chief ministerial candidate Prem Kumar Dhumal is also playing on the minds of the party leaders.
Sources stated that Ms Raje spent the entire day in personal contact programme and finalising strategy regarding bringing the voters out on the polling day. The chief minister doesn’t want to leave anything to chance, sources close to Raje added.
Ms Raje is facing a resurgent Congress in the constituency as the party has decided to field a BJP rebel and son of former union minister Jaswant Singh, Manvendra Singh from the seat. Interestingly, Mr Singh belongs to the influential Rajput community.
The Congress believes that the fielding Manvendra could lead to an upset as there is a sense that the Rajput community is at loggerheads with the current BJP leadership in the state.
However, the party feels that its recent feelers to the community would placate them. Ms Raje also roped in Shree Rajput Karni Sena chief Sukhram Singh Goga-medi to pledge the community’s support to her.
Though Rajputs are less than ten percent of the population in the state, the community is considered to be very influential due to its vast land and commercial interests.
Rajputs are considered to be a community which has traditionally backed the BJP in elections. The martial caste had a love hate relationship with the Congress ever since the abolition of privy purses by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1971.Congress has managed to present a united front under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi.
