Jaipur: A dramatic scene awaited the journalists present at the Rajasthan Congress’s headquarters in Jaipur, as two-time former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Prahlad Gunjal emphatically proclaimed his seniority in the saffron party, which he quit before joining the Congress on Thursday.
“When I had become the MLA, the Rajasthan chief minister was a sarpanch, while the incumbent BJP state president used to be a panchayat samiti member,” Gunjal said, before vowing to work hard to strengthen the Congress — a party he till now had opposed bitterly in his four-decade-old political career — in the Hadoti region of Rajasthan.
Gunjal, a loyalist of senior BJP leader and former chief minister Vasundhara Raje, is expected to be declared as the Congress’s candidate for the Kota parliamentary seat, which is currently held by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. After joining the Congress, Gunjal launched a scathing attack on the BJP, alleging that the voice of the common worker is being suppressed in his former party.
Gunjal was earlier fielded by the BJP in the Assembly elections last year from the Kota North seat but lost to senior Congress leader Shanti Dhariwal.
Even though Rajasthan Congress president Govind Singh Dotasra maintained that the decision to induct Gunjal was unanimously supported by all Congress leaders, Dhariwal, who shares a bitter relationship with Gunjal, was conspicuously missing from the latter’s induction ceremony at the Congress office in Jaipur.
The defection of Gunjal just before the Lok Sabha elections shows the larger trend in both the ruling BJP and opposition Congress in Rajasthan, wherein both the parties are relying on turncoats from other political parties to get the electoral arithmetic right in the state with 25 Lok Sabha seats.
Tribal politician quitting Congress, Jat politician leaving BJP over feud with Rajput leader
Back in February, the BJP had made the first move by inducting Congress MLA and senior politician Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya into its ranks and declaring him as the party’s candidate from the tribal dominated Banswara Lok Sabha seat, where apart from the Congress, the Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP) has emerged as a potent political force in recent times.
The Congress was quick to hit back, as Rahul Kaswan, the BJP’s incumbent MP from Churu joined the grand old party earlier this month. Subsequently he has been fielded by the Congress from the Churu seat, which Kaswan has won twice since 2014.
Rahul Kaswan’s family — his father Ram Singh Kaswan is also a former MP from Churu — shifted to the Congress fold after the BJP denied a ticket to him and instead fielded Paralympian Devendra Jhajharia from the seat, making the contest for Churu one of the most interesting electoral battles in Rajasthan.
The denial of ticket to Kaswan by the BJP is a result of the latter’s feud with senior BJP leader Rajendra Rathore, a former seven-time MLA who was also the Rajasthan leader of opposition before the assembly elections.
Rathore, a Rajput, along with the Kaswan family, which is from the Jat community, have decided the course of Churu’s politics in the last three decades, also strengthening the BJP in the district. While Rathore was elected an MLA from seats in Churu district consecutively for seven times between 1990 and 2023, the Churu Lok Sabha seat has been held by a Kaswan family member since 1999.
However, the camaraderie between Rathore and the Kaswan clan suffered after Rathore’s defeat in the 2023 assembly elections from the Taranagar Assembly constituency, where Narendra Budania, a senior Congress MLA emerged victorious.
Rathore’s supporters alleged that the Kaswan family was responsible for Rathore’s defeat by helping Congress candidate Budania and backstabbing Rathore in the electoral arena. Rathore himself termed those who ‘betrayed’ him as ‘Jaichand’.
After sitting MP Kaswan was denied a ticket by the BJP, it was seen as a counter attack by Rathore, who holds considerable influence in the BJP.
Ever since Kaswan joined Congress, the electoral battle in Churu has become a Jat vs Rajput fight, with Kaswan against Jhajharia, who despite being a Jat, is seen as a proxy candidate for Rathore, a Rajput.
Behind defections: Focus on OBC votes, shrinking space for Raje loyalists in BJP
Earlier this month, the BJP inducted several OBC Congress leaders including former MLAs Richpal Mirdha, his son Vijaypal Mirdha and former ministers Lalchand Kataria and Rajendra Singh Yadav.
While Richpal Mirdha and his son VIjaypal Mirdha belong from the Mirdha clan — one of the most influential Jat political families in Rajasthan — Kataria and Yadav were close aides of former chief minister Ashok Gehlot.
Both Kataria and Yadav were ministers in the previous Ashok Gehlot government. Yadav’s premises were also raided by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with an alleged mid day meal scam.
Also read: How an Adivasi Party is Changing Political Equations in Southern Rajasthan’s Tribal Districts
The defections reflect the BJP’s focus on the Jat and OBC votes in the state, where the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has been winning all 25 Lok Sabha seats since 2014.
Jat leaders such as Mirdha and Kataria wield significant influence in districts such as Nagaur and Jaipur rural from where they have been elected as legislators and parliamentarians, while Yadav was among the most well known leaders of the Congress from the Yadav community, who are traditional voters of the BJP in Rajasthan.
By inducting strong OBC and Jats leaders, the BJP hopes to strengthen its grip in districts such as Nagaur, where the Jat votes decides the winner.
Similarly, by fielding BJP turncoat Kaswan, the Congress hopes to give a tough fight to the BJP in Churu, which is part of the Shekhawati region. Even though the Congress lost the 2023 assembly elections, it had outperformed the BJP in the Shekhawati belt.
Eyeing the Lok Sabha seats in Western Rajasthan, the Congress has declared Umeda Ram Beniwal a turncoat from the Hanuman Beniwal-led Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) as its candidate from the Jat dominated Barmer parliamentary seat. Beniwal will take on Union Minister Kailash Choudhary.
The fact that the Rajasthan BJP has seen a leadership change is also instrumental behind its established leaders joining the Congress. Seasoned BJP politicians such as Kaswan and Gunjal were counted among staunch supporters of former chief minister Raje, who was not given a third term by the saffron party leadership after they came to power last year.
With the BJP central leadership now calling the shots in Rajasthan where Bhajan Lal Sharma, a first-time MLA, was made the chief minister instead of Raje, the former chief minister’s supporters now find themselves staring at an uncertain future.
