New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje has won from Jhalrapatan, defeating her nearest rival, the Congress’s Ram Lal Chauhan, by over 53,000 votes.
While the two-term CM hasn’t been projected as the BJP’s CM candidate in this election, she remains in contention for the top post as the party’s most popular face in the state.
Raje, one of the BJP’s national vice-presidents, had won from the Dholpur assembly seat in 1985-89 before successfully contesting five parliamentary elections from Jhalawar. She later became a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.
In 2003, after she contested and won from the Jhalrapatan assembly constituency by defeating Rama Pilot — mother of Congress leader Sachin Pilot — Raje became the chief minister. She won the Jhalrapatan assembly seat in the next three elections — 2008, 2013 and 2018.
In 2013, when the BJP came to power in Rajasthan by winning 163 out of 200 seats, Raje became the chief minister for the second time. In Jhalrapatan, she defeated Congress candidate Meenakshi Chandrawat by more than 60,000 votes.
In 2018, the ex-CM defeated Manvendra Singh, son of senior BJP leader and former Union minister Jaswant Singh, who had joined Congress just before the elections, by 34,980 votes.
This election, the BJP has been steadfast in its refusal to name her as its CM candidate despite demands from her supporters, instead banking on collective leadership and brand Modi.
Raje, considered close to veteran BJP leader L.K. Advani, has had an uneasy relationship with the BJP high command ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah took centre stage in 2014.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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