Jaipur: In the coming Lok Sabha elections, the BJP seems to make major changes in the candidates in Rajasthan. The party is likely to change the tickets of more than 50 per cent of sitting MPs in the state. Of these, six are those who have contested the assembly elections this time. Out of these six, three have become MLAs. Apart from these, the party may replace the MPs who have been winning for two consecutive terms.
There are 25 sets of Lok Sabha in Rajasthan. BJP has been making a clean sweep in the Lok Sabha elections in Rajasthan for the last two times. In the year 2014, the party had won 25 seats, however in 2018 by-elections the party lost Ajmer and Alwar seats.
In 2019, the party contested elections on 24 seats and gave one seat of Nagaur to Hanuman Beniwal's party RLP. This time also Congress, despite being in power in the state, had lost all the seats.
BJP hopeful of a clean sweep
This time, BJP is once again hopeful of a clean sweep as the party is in power in the state and after the consecration of Ram Mandir, the party is assuming a wave is in its favour.
Despite this, the party has already made some strategic preparations. The party seems to be fully active at the organizational level and the anti-incumbency on some seats has also been reduced by fielding six MPs in the assembly elections.
The party had changed nine candidates in the 2019 elections and this time as per the party sources the party may change 15 to 18 tickets. Out of these, new names are considered for six seats: Ajmer, Alwar, Jaipur Rural, Rajsamand, Jhunjhunu and Jalore-Sirohi, because MPs of these seats were fielded in assembly elections. Of these, three MPs Rajyavardhan Singh Rathod, Diya Kumari and Balaknath are currently MLAs, while Bhagirath Chaudhary, Narendra Kumar and Devji Patel had lost the election.
Apart from these six, some of the seats where the MPs have completed two consecutive terms or where the Congress has performed well in the last assembly election have also been identified as challenging.
“Congress has performed quite well this time in the assembly election by winning 69 seats so 11 Lok Sabha seats that consist of these and some other assembly constituencies have been identified as challenging,” said a senior leader of the party.
These include Jaipur Rural, Jalore, Jhunjhunu, Karauli-Dholpur, Nagaur, Sikar, Tonk-Sawaimadhopur, Sriganganagar, Alwar, Banswara and Barmer. The party may replace the sitting MPs on these seats.
However, the party has yet to start the candidate selection process whereas Congress has completed this exercise. The members of the Congress election committee were in Lok Sabha constituencies for the last few days to get the feedback of contenders.
