‘Vasundhara had stopped campaigning for the party as she used to earlier.’
NEW DELHI
The Bharatiya Janata Party seems to have sidelined Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan which, according to party insiders, could impact the BJP’s tally of seats. However, party leaders are sure that the state’s traditional pattern of voting out the incumbent government will help the BJP sail over 100 out of the state’s 200 Assembly seats.
A BJP insider said, “Vasundhara had stopped campaigning for the party as she used to earlier. Her lack of interest in campaigning for the party could impact around 20 seats.”
Leaders close to Raje say, if the BJP wins more than 120 seats in the 200-strong Assembly, it will make Raje toothless as she won’t be able to assert herself in the party and neither could she build pressure on the BJP by pressing MLAs to defect.
Consequently, if she plans to defect in such a scenario, she would have to convince more than 78 (based on 120 seat cou=nt) legislators in order to escape the anti-defection law. This, according to political analysts, is impossible for her to pull off.
However, if she chooses to defect with fewer legislators, the Assembly members will be disqualified, which will allow the Election Commission to hold bypolls on such seats. But the problem would be that to contest again on such seats, Raje would find it difficult to repeat the wins.
With the former Chief Minister sidelined, the problem with Raje, according to party insiders, was that the central leadership of the BJP was not able to take full control of the state as Raje is an independent leader who would take charge of things, not relying much on the instructions from Delhi. This independent management, according to party insiders, had disturbed the hierarchy of the party structure. By side-lining her, the party can not only give chance to a new leader (for CM position) in the state, but also be able to implement its decisions without any friction. A party insider said, “There are high chances that Gajendra Singh Shekhawat will be made the CM if the BJP wins the elections.”
An independent surveyor in the state said, “For now, there are chances that the BJP will win the elections with a good margin. And such a scenario will be detrimental for the future of Raje. But if she doesn’t get what she wants she can damage the party in the Lok Sabha elections next year, which can hurt the saffron camp in over five seats.”
However, a Congress insider said that they are banking on “silent voters” which can help it repeat the government and also the BJP doesn’t have a clear face on whom they can appeal to the voters. “Therefore the Congress shouldn’t be written off,” the insider said.