Jaipur: Congress candidate Sudarshan Singh Rawat from Rajsamand in Rajasthan has returned the ticket citing personal reasons. After Jaipur, Rajsamand will be the second seat where the Congress will have to change the candidate.
In a letter to the party state president, Sudarshan Singh Rawat has not only refused to contest elections from Rajsamand but expressed his displeasure over making him a candidate without his consent.
"In the last month, during the opinion poll and discussion about the Lok Sabha elections, I several times expressed my inability to contest the Lok Sabha elections to all the top leaders of the state. It was my personal opinion that despite the historic development works, I do not have the moral right to contest the Lok Sabha elections just four months after the defeat in the last assembly elections and it is also not logical that I should contest the Lok Sabha elections. Nor did I have any strategic preparation regarding this," reads the letter of Rawat.
Rawat further wrote "I was scheduled to be on a foreign tour for the next two months in connection with my business. I had suggested making a youth a candidate. But, a top leader of Mewar kept the party leadership in the dark. Despite me being on a foreign tour for the next two months and repeatedly expressing my disagreement, my name was proposed, which is not appropriate," although Rawat refused to name the leader whom he had accused of forwarding his name.
Sudarshan Singh Rawat was declared the candidate on March 25. Polling on the seat is scheduled in the second phase on April 26th. Congress had to change the ticket from Jaipur city after the alleged association of declared candidate Sunil Sharma with a pro-RSS organisation. Pratap Singh Khachariyawas was made the candidate in place of Sunil Sharma.
