New Delhi: Congress candidate from the Barmer Lok Sabha seat in Rajasthan, Ummeda Ram Beniwal, is leading with a margin of over 37,000 votes, as of 2 PM. Independent candidate Ravindra Bhati is in the second position with more than 3,84,000 votes. But he has managed to ensure that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s sitting MP and minister Kailash Chaudhary is relegated to the third position.
Facing massive anti-incumbency during the elections, Choudhary had to rely on intensive campaigning by senior BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had canvassed for him in Barmer.
ThePrint had reported earlier that Bhati’s candidature was likely to affect the BJP more than the Congress with experts predicting a Jat vs Rajput clash on the seat.
According to BJP sources, Bhati, a former student union leader, had also lobbied for a BJP ticket for the Lok Sabha polls, but the party picked incumbent MP Kailash Choudhary as its Barmer candidate.
Bhati has always praised PM Modi’s work and has always kept his options open. He had, in fact, quit the BJP following a week-long stint ahead of the 2023 assembly polls, after he was denied a ticket. He had gone on to contest the election independently from the Sheo assembly constituency in Barmer district.
Bhati’s rallies and roadshows had become a talking point at the time for attracting huge crowds, particularly the youth. He clinched victory with a vote share of over 31 percent in the assembly polls.
Fondly known as Ravsa among his peers, Bhati started his political innings, when he was elected the president of Jodhpur’s Jai Narain Vyas University student union as an independent candidate.
Bhati was denied a ticket by the BJP ahead of the 2023 Rajasthan polls in favour of Swaroop Singh Khara, the party’s Barmer district president, for Sheo. Bhati contested independently and won the seat with a big margin.
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The Barmer Lok Sabha seat
Barmer was historically a Congress stronghold. Barring the elections of 1977 and 1989, Congress candidates won this seat between 1967 and 1999. In 2004, for the first time, the constituency came under the control of BJP.
In 2009, Congress won again, but since 2014, BJP’s Kailash Choudhary has been the MP.
BJP had deployed a number of senior leaders to campaign for Choudhary, including the prime minister who held a roadshow in Barmer, as it was concerned about the size of the crowds that Bhati’s roadshows were pulling.
The Barmer constituency borders Pakistan and is of strategic interest. The BJP had relied on the campaigning by PM Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma as well as a number of state ministers to ensure a win for the party there, which does not seem possible now.
Caste-based politics plays a dominant role in Barmer. BJP candidate Choudhary belongs to the Jat community, estimated to make up around 4.5 lakh of the voters there. Beniwal, who left the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party to join the Congress, also belongs to the Jat community. Bhati is a Rajput.
Barmer has an electorate of approximately 22 lakh voters. Of those, Jats account for 4.5 lakh, SC-STs for four lakh, Rajputs for three lakh, and Muslims 2.7 lakh, according to estimates by political parties. In addition, 6.5 lakh voters belong to OBCs (Other Backward Classes).
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)