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Rajasthan is all set to vote On November 25 to elect members of a new assembly with the BJP aiming to unseat the ruling Congress, which is fighting hard to change the trend of alternate governments in the state.
Polling will be held from 7 am to 6 pm in 199 out of 200 constituencies amid tight security arrangements, chief electoral officer Praveen Gupta said.
Due to the death of Congress candidate in Sriganganagar’s Karanpur seat Gurmeet Singh Koonar, also the sitting MLA, election in this constituency has been adjourned.
The past few days saw a high-pitch electoral campaign with Congress focusing mainly on the works and performance of the Ashok Gehlot government, its schemes and programmes and also banked on the promise of seven guarantees if the party retains power. The BJP attacked the Congress on issues such as crime against women, appeasement, corruption and paper leak.
As many as 1862 candidates are in the fray with the number of voters being 5,25,38,105. These include 1,70,99,334 voters in the age group of 18-30, and of them, 22,61,008 are new voters in the 18-19 age group.
Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, state Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasra, assembly speaker CP Joshi, several ministers including Shanti Dhariwal, BD Kalla, Bhanwar Singh Bhati, Saleh Mohammad, Mamta Bhupesh, Pratap Singh Khachariyawas, Rajendra Yadav, Shakuntla Rawat, Udai Lal Anjana, Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya, Ashok Chandna and former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot are among the Congress leaders contesting the elections. In BJP, leader of opposition Rajendra Rathore, deputy leader of opposition and former state president Satish Poonia, former chief minister Vasundhara Raje, MPs Diya Kumari, Rajyavardhan Rathore, Baba Balaknath and Kirodi Lal Meena are in the fray.
BJP has given tickets to 59 MLAs, including defected Congress MLA Girraj Singh Malinga and six Lok Sabha and one Rajya Sabha member while the Congress has fielded 97 MLAs including seven independents and one from BJP – Shobharani Kushwah who was expelled from the saffron party last year. One of the major faces who joined the BJP from the Congress is former MP from Nagaur Jyoti Mirdha, who is contesting the assembly election.
Nagaur MP and Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) convener Hanuman Beniwal is also contesting the assembly elections. RLP is contesting the election in alliance with Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshiram) led by Chandrashekhar Azad.
BJP is contesting on all seats while Congress has left one seat – Bharatpur – for its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) like the 2018 elections.
Over 40 rebels of both BJP and Congress are also in the fray.
At present, Congress has 107 MLAs, BJP 70, 3 RLP, 2 each of CPI (M) and Bhartiya Tribal Party (BTP), 1 Rashtriya Lok Dal, 13 are independents and two seats (Udaipur and Karanpur) are vacant.
