New Delhi: The Congress managers were able to control damage by nominating at least one Brahmin candidate in Rajasthan just in time after it was realized that the grand old party had missed out on the influential community which has around 8 percent vote share in the state.
According to party insiders, two factors were crucial in the Congress strategy before the shortlisting of names in Rajasthan that started a few weeks ago. The BJP had recently won the assembly polls and had installed a lesser-known leader and a Brahmin face Bhajan Lal Sharma as chief minister. Yet, a slip took place.
The Congress named Sunil Sharma as its Jaipur candidate but had to replace him with an outsider and former minister Pratap Singh Kachariyawas after it came to light that Sharma had been linked to an event called Jaipur Dialogues which had been critical of the grand old party.
Even veteran leader and Thiruvananthapuram candidate Shashi Tharoor had expressed displeasure over Sharma’s nomination. In turn, Sharma questioned Tharoor’s participation in the Jaipur Dialogues.
With Sharma out of the picture, the party managers went on with clearing the names of other seats happily till veteran CP Joshi’s supporters made a noise and the party managers realized that there was no representation in the list of candidates from the Brahmin community.
On March 29, the CEC did course correction and named veteran and former Speaker CP Joshi (Brahmin) from Bhilwara seat after having nominated Damodar Gurjar from there. Damodar Gurjar has now been shifted to the Rajsamand seat which is a new territory for him, said party insiders.
“Joshi has been Bhilwara MP and a former union minister. He was Assembly Speaker during the Ashok Gehlot government and is a part of the state core group for Lok Sabha polls. I don’t how his name was missed earlier but a course correction has been done in time. It is also surprising how the screening process cleared the name of Sunil Sharma,” a senior AICC functionary said.
According to party insiders, the flip-flop happened as during the initial stages of screening committee meetings and later during ticket approvals by the Central Election Committee, the focus was on greater representation to the OBCs.
Rajasthan has 25 Lok Sabha seats and the Congress has given two seats to its allies - Sikar to CPI-M‘s Amra Ram and Nagaur to RLP’s Hanuman Beniwal.
Out of the remaining 23 seats the party has named 14 OBCs, 6 Jats, one Brahmin and one Patel, said party insiders.
The party managers are hopeful of a pact with the BAP which may be given the Banswada-Dungarpur seat. If the pact does not work out, Congress will field a candidate there in a day or two.
In 2019 the BJP had won all the 25 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan despite the Ashok Gehlot government in place.
The challenge is bigger in 2024 but the Congress hopes to do better this time. The Congress has fielded ex-BJP MP Rahul Kaswan from Churu and ex-BJP MLA Prahlad Gunjal from Kota against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.
“We have fielded very good candidates. Change of candidates is normal and takes place in all parties. The BJP will be in for a surprise this time,” AICC general secretary in charge of Rajasthan SS Randhawa told ETV Bharat.
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