CM Sharma also drove to her residence, showing due respect for the senior leader where the state chief Rathore was also present.
File Photo: IANS
The political parleys for the preparation of the November 11 assembly by-election in the Anta seat of the Baran district in Rajasthan gained momentum on Friday with Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma, former CM Vasundhara Raje, and the ruling BJP state President Madan Rathore holding crucial meeting to discuss various aspects of the election, including selection of the party candidate.
The meeting was held late Friday afternoon at the two-time ex-chief minister Raje’s Civil Lines residence. CM Sharma also drove to her residence, showing due respect for the senior leader where the state chief Rathore was also present.
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The meeting was held following the word from the party’s Central leadership who duly recognises her views and opinion as the political equation and the party’s prospects at the hustings are concerned, especially in her invincible bastion in the Baran and Jhalawar districts.
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Raje’s political clout in the Jhalawar Parliamentary constituency is proven by the electoral track records. The former queen of the erstwhile Dholpur royalty had held the Jhalawar seat in the Lok Sabha for five terms in a row between 1989 and 2004. Since then, she has been winning assembly polls (5 times) on the Jhalrapatan seat that again is one of the eight segments of the Jhalawar Parliamentary constituency. Her son, Dushyant Singh, has been holding the mother’s bastion since 2004 and this is his fifth term.
Hence, her word over the choice of the party nominee for the Anta seat, another assembly segment of the Baran district has to be duly considered by the BJP leadership despite sometimes sweet and sometimes sour political rapport with her.
On the other hand, the Opposition Congress has fielded its old guard, former Minister Pramod Jain Bhaya, who was defeated by Kanwar Lal Meena (BJP) in the last 2023 elections, again.
Meena’s disqualification-after his conviction in an old criminal case has necessitated the bypoll. A former Congress rebel, Naresh Meena, has also declared to contest the seat as an Independent publicly.
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