‘While PM Modi will be the face of the party’s campaign in the state, it will be Raje who will be the undeclared CM face’.
New Delhi: The BJP will contest the 2023 December Assembly elections in Rajasthan under the “guidance and leadership” of former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, senior BJP party functionaries have stated.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be the face of the party’s campaign in the state, it will be Raje who will be the undeclared Chief Minister face. The BJP, as a matter of practice, does not officially declare its CM face. In a state where it is the party in power, it is understood that the incumbent will be reappointed as the CM if the party regains power, as was seen in Uttar Pradesh where, despite a lobby of MLAs led by former deputy CM Swami Prasad Maurya stating that the party’s parliamentary board will decide who will be the CM, it was clear that the BJP was fighting the UP elections under the guidance and leadership of Yogi Adityanath and it will be he who will remain the CM.
Similarly in Assam, it was clear that in the situation the party regained power, Sarbananda Sonowal will be replaced by Himanta Biswa Sarma. In Rajasthan, party sources said, no “strong, credible” replacement has emerged who can, on his own, push Raje to the background.
Of the 73 MLAs in the state, 40 are believed to be from the Raje camp. Similarly, of the 24 Lok Sabha MPs, 15 owe their allegiance to the 69-year-old Raje who is a two-time CM (2003, 2013), five-time MLA, five-time MP and is now the national vice president of the party. In an apparent show of popularity that she enjoys, Raje, on her birthday on 8 March, addressed a public gathering, composed mostly of women, at the Keshorai temple in Bundi where she reached by a helicopter.
Despite the Assembly being in session, at least 41 MLAs and 10 MPs travelled to Bundi, a distance of 260 km from Jaipur, to personally meet her. According to local journalists, at least 105 former MLAs, many of whom had won in 2013 but lost in 2018, too, attended the event.
During her speech, Raje reminded the people and MLAs of two things—the win of 2003 (where the party won on 120 seats) and the performance of 2013 (when the party won on 163 seats), both elections in which she was the party’s face. A Jaipur-based senior journalist who has covered the state extensively for more than 30 years, said that apart from her control over a large section of MLAs and MPs, she is still the most popular face of the party in the state, something which she knows and uses it to drive her point to her dissenters in the party. “The party will suffer electorally if they ignore her, something that is not lost on Prime Minister Narendra Modi who appreciates the effort that she puts in the state. That does not mean that there is no dissent against her within the party but as of now, she is the best bet that we have,” a Union minister told The Sunday Guardian.
Among others, the names of Rajya Vardhan Rathore and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat are forwarded by their supporters as someone who should be brought into the front in place of Raje. The war of words between Raje and once extremely powerful Om Mathur, had generated a lot of headlines and it was expected that it would be Raje who would have to back down. However, it was Mathur who had to step back. Later, Mathur was removed from the position of national vice president when Jagat Prakash Nadda constituted his team in October 2021.
“Raje knows her popularity, something which she displayed last month. She has a clean record and she can also go on her own way if she feels that injustice is being done to her,” a former national vice president of the party claimed.