Jaipur: The election for the Ramgarh seat in Alwar district on January 28 is going to be the first test for the ruling Congress as this would give the mood of the electorate post-Vidhan Sabha election. The election in this seat was countermanded following the death of the BSP candidate Laxman Singh, now the BSP has fielded Jagat Singh, a BJP rebel and the son of the former Union minister Natwar Singh.
Natwar Singh’s son Jagat, who once represented the seat as a Congress candidate, is capable of turning the table. The Congress has fielded Nazia Khan, the wife of former legislator Zubair Khan and the BJP ‘s candidate is Sukhwant Singh. The contest has become prestigious for both the ruling Congress and the BJP as this seat was held by the BJP’s Gyandev Ahuja, who was denied the ticket.
The Assembly session is on and both the leading parties Congress and the BJP have not cared much for the election there and the hectic campaigning in the constituency will begin only after 24th when the Assembly session ends. The Congress that could win only 99 seats in the 200 member Assembly would try to reach three digit numer. The BJP has 73 members and the BSP is having six.
The smaller parties will wait for the verdict of this election at Ramgarh to feel the pulse of the electorate and it is likely that a third front would be formed with Hanuman Beniwal’s Rashtriya Loktantrik Party, the newly formed Bhartiya Tribal Party that won the two seats in the recent Assembly election and the CPM. These parties would try for an alliance with the Congress to contest the election failing which they would form their own front.
The Congress could get only half a per cent vote shares more than the BJP and if the voting pattern of the Assembly election was any indication the ruling Congress will have to improve its performance to pose any challenge to the BJP that won all the 25 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
The BJP has already pulled its socks for the Lok Sabha election, but as the party has not allowed the former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje to dabble in the state politics, the party is certainly handicapped without a leader of stature. The BJP now depends on the leader of Opposition and the senior most legislator Gulab Chand Kataria to lead the party from the front. But Kataria’s popularity is confined only to the southern Rajasthan.
