New Delhi/Jaipur: The BJP on Saturday named 83 more candidates for the Rajasthan Assembly polls, including former chief minister Vasundhara Raje from her traditional Jhalrapatan seat.
Fifty incumbent MLAs have been given tickets while nine have not been renominated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has also not named any MP in the second list.
Of the 83 candidates, 10 are women.
The party has fielded Raje from the Jhalrapatan seat, from where she has won four times. There are seven women candidates in the second list, while the first list had four women candidates.
The BJP has changed candidates on fifteen seats. However, most seats in the list are seen as BJP bastions. Of the 83 seats, the BJP had won 61 in the 2018 election.
BJP announced its first list of 41 candidates on October 9, which had several new faces and seven MPs.
So far, the party has declared candidates on 124 seats. Voting for 200 assembly seats in Rajasthan is scheduled on November 2, and counting will take place on December 3.
Several MLAs considered close to Raje, including Kalicharan Saraf, Pratap Singhvi, Shrichand Kriplani, Kalulal Meghwal, Narendra Nagar, and Deepti Maheshwari have also been included in the second list.
The party has fielded Jyoti Mirdha, who switched to the BJP from the Congress from Nagaur. Mirdha, who joined the BJP last month, will replace sitting MLA Mohan Ram Choudhary.
BJP state general secretary Bhajan Lal Sharma will contest from Sanganer.
Vishwaraj Singh Mewar, the scion of the erstwhile Udaipur royal family, has been fielded from Nathdwara against senior Congress leader CP Joshi.
Leader of the Opposition Rajendra Rathore has been given a ticket from Taranagar instead of Churu.
The Dholpur seat was won by Shobha Rani Kushwah, who fought on a BJP ticket in 2018. However, Shobha Rani was expelled from the BJP after she cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha election in 2022. She joined the Congress party on October 20. The BJP has fielded Dr Shivcharan Kushwaha this time from the seat.
Devendra Joshi, BJP’s former district president of Jodhpur City, has been fielded from the Soorsagar seat that was represented by senior party leader Suryakanta Vyas.
Tarachand Jain, BJP’s former district president of Udaipur City has got the ticket from the Udaipur city seat which was represented by BJP stalwart Gulab Chand Kataria. Jain is considered a close aide of Kataria.
The party has cut tickets of nine sitting MLAs, including Mohan Ram, Chandrabhan Singh Akya from Chittorgarh and Ashok Lahoty from Sanganer.
Narpat Singh Rajvi, whose ticket was cut from Vidyadhar Nagar, has been fielded from the Chittorgarh seat. Rajvi, who is the son-in-law of late Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, had expressed displeasure at being dropped from the first list.
While the party has retained Amer MLA and deputy leader of opposition Satish Poonia, Bikaner (East) MLA Siddhi Kumari, Ajmer (North) MLA Vasudev Devnani, and Ajmer (South) MLA Anita Bhadel, the leaders who have been dropped this time, include– Suryakanta Vyas from Soorsagar, Subhash Poonia, Surajgarh, Harendra Ninama, Ghatol, Lalit Ostwal Badi Sadri, Rooparam Murawatiya, Makrana, Gotam Lal Meena from Dhariyawad.
Commenting on the list, state BJP spokesperson Laxmikant Bhardwaj said the party has given strong candidates. “This is a good list. All candidates are winning candidates. Many of them are MLAs and have a good experience of working in the field and of cornering the government in the assembly.”
