The love for Royal families in BJP is well known and as the party as per reports is looking for an alternative to former chief minister Vasundhara Raje, the other royal Diya Kumari is being considered as the front runner for this.
Although her experience in politics is much less than Vasundhara Raje's one should remember that Raje was almost in the same position when she was brought to Rajasthan to replace veteran leader Bhairon Singh Shekhawat 20 years ago.
The desert state of Rajasthan loves the glamour of Royal families which is evident from the fact that Vasundhara Raje has ruled the BJP for fifteen years singal-handedly and ruled the state two times with a thumping majority.
She is still the only mass leader the BJP has in Rajasthan and her public meetings during the campaign in the assembly election proved this.
Vasundhara Raje was brought to Rajasthan before the assembly election of 2003 by the then BJP high command to replace Bhairon Singh Shekhawat who was taken to the centre as the Vice President of the country.
Parivartan Yatra
The party at that time held a Parivartan Yatra to introduce Raje to Rajasthan who was just an MP from Jhalawar, though she belonged to Dhoulpur.
The party got a thumping majority of 120 seats for the first time in the state under the leadership of Raje and from then on she led the party till 2018 when the party was defeated now however back in power but this time it seems that the party is looking for an replacement of Raje.
Interestingly the conditions of replacing (if takes place) Vasundhara Raje with Diya Kumari were almost identical in 2003.
Diya Kumari is the daughter of former Maharaja of Jaipur Bhawani Singh. She was brought to politics by Vasundhara Raje herself before the assembly election of 2013 in a public meeting of Narendra Modi in Jaipur.
Diya Kumari got the ticket of MLA from Sawai Madhopur despite being from Jaipur. She won the election.
Kumari fielded from largest parliamentary constituency
In 2018 she was denied the ticket but later was fielded as the candidate of MP from Rajsamand, the largest parliamentary constituency in Rajasthan.
Diya Kumari once again showed her medal by winning the election.
But this time she has been brought to Jaipur to contest the assembly election once again from Vidhyadhar Nagar, a constituency considered to be the safest one for the party. She was given a ticket in the first list and for her, the party denied a ticket to the sitting MLA Narpat Singh Rajvi who is not only the senior leader of the party but the son-in-law of Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.
The party is yet to decide the CM face but how Diya Kumari has been given prominence indicates that the party wants her to be in the front league,' said a senior leader of the party.
There may be a sentiment of change in BJP but Vasundhara Raje's loyalists are not happy with this. Around 45 MLAs met her on Monday. It was taken as her show of strength and acting promptly on this, the party instructed the MLAs to remain in their constituencies till they were called to Jaipur.
