Both former CMs are focused on ensuring that their sons win in 2024.
Vasundhara Raje and Ashok Gehlot, who for more than one decade were referred to as the biggest leaders of their respective parties in Rajasthan, are now watching the electoral battles from the sidelines.
Both the former Chief Ministers are now primarily focused on ensuring that their sons—Dushyant Singh Raje, who is contesting from Jhalawar and Vaibhav Gehlot who is fighting from Jalore—win from their seats.
Congress party sources said that the political graph of Gehlot has gone down steadily in the last couple of years, which started with his refusal to accept the demand of the Gandhi family to become the Congress president.
The proverbial last straw that broke the camel’s back was the Congress’ listless performance in the desert state in last year’s Assembly elections, which Congress lost comprehensively despite Gehlot being given a free hand in the selection of candidates and the campaigning.
Gehlot, a five-time Lok Sabha Member of Parliament, though won his sixth Assembly election from his traditional seat of Sardarpura, Jodhpur.
Congress party sources told The Sunday Guardian that the 73-year-old Gehlot, who is a
“Gandhi-ite”, could not secure tickets for his supporters in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, which has further cemented the perception that being perceived to belong to the “Gehlot camp” was not a good thing anymore.
Jaipur-based political observers said that on 22 seats—of Rajasthan’s 25—that the Congress is contesting from, at least nine have been given on the recommendation of party leader Sachin Pilot. “The Congress leader and workers have realized that Gehlot’s innings is more or less over and now Pilot will be the pole around which Congress will revolve in Rajasthan. Gehlot is more focused on ensuring that his son wins, as a loss in this election will put his political future in jeopardy as Gehlot realises that he has lost his clout in Delhi and may not be able to politically help his son in the future anymore,” a Jaipur-based veteran journalist said.
Of the remaining three seats, two seats of Nagaur and Sikar are being contested by RLP and CPI(M) candidates respectively, as a part of the Congress-led alliance, while on the Banswara seat, Arvind Damor now stands expelled from Congress after he refused to withdraw his nomination as the Congress, after announcing his name, later decided to contest the seat in an alliance with Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP). Technically, Damor is the Congress’s candidate from the seat as he has the symbol. But BAP’s candidate Rajkumar Roat, has now become the BAP-Congress alliance candidate.
Similar is the situation with former Chief minister, the 71-year-old Vasundhara Raje, who for the better part of the last five years, was described as someone who was the only BJP leader, pan-India, who refused to accept the directions of the party leadership.
As a result of this defiance, the six-time MLA (five times from Jhalrapatan, once from Dholpur) and five-time MP, was not able to secure the chair of Chief Minister last year, despite making her intentions clear.
To add to Raje’s political disappointment, her supporters, who had won the elections, could not find a place in the cabinet of Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma. Sources said that all the names that took oath last year were vetted and recommended by the Delhi-based leadership.
To further ease the long-held grip of Raje in the party’s affairs in Rajasthan, the leadership also denied tickets to at least four of her supporters who were sitting MPs, while not accepting the names that were recommended by her on a few other seats.
BJP leaders said that workers and leaders have gauged the mood at 6A Deendayal Upadhyay Marg, and are now slowly moving away from Raje as they do want to be seen as “close to her”.
According to party leaders, while Raje’s name is in the 40-member list of star campaigners list for Rajasthan, she is mostly limited to Jhalawar -Baran amidst reports that her son Dushyant was facing a tough fit both from Congress and from Raje’s detractors within the party.
Raje, who is the national vice president, has not been invited to be a part of any of the six public engagements that Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Rajasthan till now, which that is perhaps the clearest form of messaging by the party high command on the political future of the queen of the erstwhile Dholpur royal family.
With the next Assembly elections not due until November 2028, both Gehlot and Raje are now fighting their last political battles, on behalf of their sons.