Jaipur: West Rajasthan is about to witness an almost issue-less assembly election this time. However, the fight of some of the big faces of Rajasthan politics will make the election battle a bit more interesting.
West Rajasthan includes seven districts, namely Nagpur, Jodhpur, Barmer, Jaisalmer, Pali, Jalore and Sirohi, with 43 assembly constituencies.
Voter preferences:
The result of the previous election of these seven districts had put an interesting picture of voters ' choices. The voters of Nagour, Jodhpur, Barmer and Jaisalmer voted for Congress, while Pali, Jalore and Sirohi voted for BJP.
Out of 43 seats in these seven districts, 22 went to Congress, 16 to BJP and the rest of five to others, including Rashtriya Loktantrik Party, an emerging political force led by Nagour MP Hanuman Beniwal.
The reason behind this mix of choice of voters is somewhat related to the caste equation of this region. The four districts where the Congress got the majority of seats are Jat dominated, a community that is the traditional vote bank of Congress. While the other three districts where the BJP was strong have a mixed caste equation of tribals and other general casts.
Apart from this, the Congress is facing deep-rooted factionalism in these districts for quite a long time.
Prominent political figures:
This region has some of the big faces of Rajasthan politics as Jodhpur is the hometown of CM Ashok Gehlot and union minister for Jalshakti Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, who is one of the CM face contenders of BJP. Jodhpur is also the home district of the Maderna family which is a prominent political family associated with Congress in Rajasthan.
Similarly, Nagour is the home district of Hanuman Beniwal and Mirdhas, which has a long association with Congress, but recently, an important member of the family, Jyoti Mirdha joined the BJP. While Barmer has Harish Choudhary, senior Congress leader and in charge of Punjab Congress.
The political observers of the region said that this is going to be an issue with assembly elections in this region this time, but as some of the big faces hail from here battle on some seats will be interesting. Ajay Parmar, a political analyst from Jodhpur, said 'no major issues are there in the election of West Rajasthan this time but interesting face off of some Jat leaders like Hanuman Beniwal, Divya Maderna, Badri Jakhad, Harish Choudhary and Jyoti Mirdha and the ongoing political tussle of CM Ashok Gehlot and union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat will make the contest hot in the region.
Although Congress and BJP are in direct contest on most of the seats in seven districts of West Rajasthan RLP, the party of Hanuman Beniwal has emerged as a major political force here. RLP won three seats in Nagpur and Jodhpur in the last election and has a good presence on most of the seats, so it will be interesting to see how it will convert the direct fight into a triangular one and who is going to get the benefit of that.
