It was the BJP stalwart Bhairon Singh Shekhawat in 2002. Now after exactly 20 years, it is Jagdeep Dhankhar. Rajasthan is delighted with the announcement of Dhankhar’s candidature for the post of vice-president.
Not only BJP leaders, but Congress leaders are also happy that the state will have its second leader in one of the key constitutional posts of the country.
Although Congress leaders are not commenting anything in public, as Magret Alwa has been declared the opposition candidate for the post-V-P, Dhankhar has good relations across parties in Rajasthan.
Dhankhar was a Janata Dal MP in 1989 and was in Congress too. In 2003, he joined BJP. His brother Randeep Dhankhar is a senior leader of the Rajasthan Congress and is considered close to CM Ashok Gehlot. Randeep was the chairman of Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation during Gehlot’s last tenure. He is also delighted with the announcement and confident that his brother will assume the post. He even advised his party’s state unit to support his brother as was done by the Navin Patnaik in Odisha for NDA’s candidate for the post of president, Droupadi Murmu.
Many coincidences:
There are many coincidences associated with Dhankhar’s candidature. Both Shekhawat and Dhankhar belong to the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan. Shekhawat was from Sikar and Dhankhar is from Jhunjhunu. Both are adjoining districts and the heartland of Jat politics in the state.
Both were chosen by the BJP although the reasons were different. Shekhawat was chosen to make room for Vasundhara Raje in the state. While Dhankhar’s candidature has nothing to do with Rajasthan BJP’s politics directly, it may benefit the party in the assembly elections in both Rajasthan and Haryana.
It is also a coincidence that if Dhankhar assumes the post, both the houses of the Parliament will be chaired by leaders from Rajasthan, as Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla is also from Rajasthan.
Alwa was the governor of Rajasthan:
It is also a coincidence that both the candidates for the post of vice-president have relations with Rajasthan as Alwa was the governor during the last tenure of Gehlot.
