New Delhi: The battling factions of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Rajasthan are redrawing their alliances, with a shift underway among the camps of former chief minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia, state BJP chief Satish Poonia, and Rajya Sabha MP and veteran Meena community leader Kirodi Lal Meena.
Meena (71), who was once expelled from the party at the insistence of Raje, has been steering clear of attacking her and is instead going on the offensive against Poonia, signalling the emergence of a new equation in the state party.
Training his guns on Poonia, Meena has claimed he did not get the support he was expecting from the state unit for his agitation against the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government.
Sources in the Meena camp believe it was after he complained to the party high command about Poonia that a planned rally by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 12 February was shifted out of Meena’s bastion. Some suspect that Poonia had a role in effecting the change in venue.
An assembly election is due to be held in Rajasthan later this year and the BJP high command has been repeatedly asking its leaders in the state to contest in Modi’s name. But much to the chagrin of the Poonia camp, Raje’s supporters are proposing that the party enter the poll fray under her leadership.
With Poonia’s tenure as state BJP chief coming to an end, his supporters have been asking the party high command to extend his tenure to ensure that the assembly polls are fought under his leadership — a demand on which the Raje camp has expressed its reservations.
The BJP’s central leadership is yet to take a call on demands that either Raje or someone else be made Rajasthan BJP president in Poonia’s place.
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‘Not just about Kirodi Lal Meena vs Satish Poonia’
Differences between top leaders of the Rajasthan BJP spilt out in the open when Meena sat on a 12-day dharna in Jaipur that began last month, demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the leaks of examination papers for recruitment to government jobs.
On Saturday, Meena suspended the agitation for seven days after consultation with the state government — and instead, took aim at Poonia.
The five-time MLA claimed that Poonia had met him at the dharna site on 31 January and assured him that the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) — the youth wing of the BJP — would mount a statewide agitation against the Gehlot government, but that commitment did not materialise.
“The the BJP, under the leadership of Satish Poonia, was supposed to take a stand on this issue; it did not do so,” Meena told ThePrint Monday.
“Poonia is responsible for the Rajasthan BJP but did not seem aggressive on this issue (paper leaks). The careers of more than 60 lakh students have been toyed with and we wanted the BJP to agitate on this issue. We tried but did not get the party’s support. This is a matter of concern. How will we be able to mount a mass movement against Ashok Gehlot?”
Soon after Poonia’s visit to the dharna site on the outskirts of Jaipur, Meena was informed that Modi’s proposed rally — for which Meena had been preparing for a long time — would now be held in Dausa.
A leader from the Meena camp said, “Earlier, the rally was proposed at Meena Court in Nangal Rajawatan village, a Meena community village which is Kirodi Lal Meena’s bastion, and preparations were underway for it. Meena’s stature would have risen if the rally had been held there, but the venue was shifted elsewhere. This was done after Meena’s attack on Poonia.”
Meena, however, said that while the change in venue has upset party workers, “we are working hard to make the rally a success”.
The groundwork for this new equation in the Rajasthan BJP may have been laid on 29 January, two days before Poonia’s visit to the dharna site. This was when Raje, once Meena’s political adversary, arrived at the site to extend her support to the agitation.
Until then, the state BJP had maintained some distance from the agitation. It was only after Raje’s appearance that Poonia visited the site. Before him, former Rajasthan BJP chief Ashok Parnami and former state minister Rohitash Sharma — both seen as close aides of Raje — had joined the agitation in response to a tweet by her.
A state BJP leader told ThePrint that the contention is “not just over Kirodi Lal Meena vs Satish Poonia”.
“Vasundhara teaming up with her arch-rival Meena signals a new political equation. And Meena attacking him after that weakened Poonia’s position, at least in the eyes of the party high command,” the leader said.
“At the end of the day, Meena’s agitation was against the government and the party should have taken the lead in supporting it.”
Raje features in Rajasthan BJP hoardings
The return of a hoarding outside the BJP office in Jaipur featuring Raje last month had incited murmurs in Rajasthan’s political circles.
Earlier, the hoardings featured Modi, party president J.P. Nadda, Poonia and leader of the opposition Gulab Chand Kataria, but not Raje. However, the party’s hoardings now feature Raje between Poonia and Kataria.
Raje was among the party leaders who welcomed Nadda when he arrived in Jaipur on 23 January to attend the Rajasthan BJP’s core committee meeting. During the meeting, Raje was seen interacting with party leaders, including perceived political adversaries such as Union Jal Shakti minister Gajendra Shekhawat, but not Poonia, said a source in the Rajasthan BJP.
Pointing to a hoarding where the BJP symbol in the district Shekhawat comes from was bigger compared to others, deputy leader of the opposition Rajendra Rathore joked that this was a sign of Delhi’s growing stature.
A former Rajasthan BJP president told ThePrint, “Rajendra Rathore, who was once close to Vasundhara, later switched sides. He doesn’t seem happy with Poonia these days, and the fact is that the centre (party high command) has been repeatedly emphasising (the need for) collective leadership. It is also not lost on the BJP top brass that Poonia was given a free hand to lead the state unit however he wanted, but it is now time for his report card.”
He added that it was under Poonia’s leadership that the party lost by-elections, and its Jan Andolan Yatra turned out to be a flop. “It is also true that both times the BJP contested polls with Vasundhara at the helm, first in 2003 when it bagged 120 seats and then in 2013 when it had 163 seats, the party won — this was a mandate even revered leader Bhairon Singh Shekhawat could not achieve,” said the leader on condition of anonymity.
Raje, who is on a three-day visit to Mewar, told supporters Sunday that she felt that “a lot needed to be done, and with the blessings of Achutyanandan Maharaj, all of us believe that if not today then tomorrow, if not tomorrow then the day after, with the blessings of Mavji Maharaj, this work will be done as long as you keep showering us with your blessings”.
Raje also said in a tweet on the same day that she is “confident that there will be a change in Rajasthan now”.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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