The Congress has dropped senior Rajasthan Minister Mahesh Joshi, considered a loyalist of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, in its sixth list of 23 candidates for the Assembly election released late on Saturday night. Mr. Joshi was among those accused of indiscipline with the boycott of a Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting convened for selecting a new Chief Minister in Jaipur in September 2022.
The party has fielded its Jaipur city unit president R.R. Tiwari from Hawa Mahal constituency in the Walled City after denying the ticket to Mr. Joshi at the seat, which he had won in 2018. Mr. Joshi was earlier elected to the Lok Sabha from Jaipur in 2009. He was the Congress Chief Whip in the Assembly before his appointment as the Cabinet Minister holding the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) portfolio.
Mr. Tiwari filed his nomination papers on Saturday even before the list of candidates was officially announced, claiming that he had been given the go-ahead by the party’s leadership. Mr. Tiwari said he would inaugurate his campaign office on Monday with a function at which Mr. Joshi would also be present.
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Despite being close to Mr. Gehlot, Mr. Joshi has suffered the setback at a time when the Enforcement Directorate is conducting raids on senior officers of the PHED over an alleged scam in the Centre’s Jal Jeevan Mission. His son Rohit Joshi is facing rape charges levelled by a woman who has claimed that he had promised to marry her after divorcing his wife.
The refusal of a ticket to Mr. Joshi is expected to mollify the camp of former Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, which has been gunning for him and two other leaders, Shanti Dhariwal and Dharmendra Rathore, over the issue of the boycott of the CLP meeting. The Congress high command has also sent across a message of its writ prevailing in the selection of candidates, despite a large of number of sitting MLAs being repeated.
Among the 23 candidates, two supporters of Mr. Pilot and several young Congress leaders have been given a ticket. Mr. Pilot’s confidants, Abhimanyu Poonia and Manish Yadav, who are often seen with him in his public appearances, have been fielded from Sangaria and Shahpura, respectively.
The party has fielded Shahzad Khan, son of Ayub Khan, who had unsuccessfully contested the 2018 election, from Soorsagar, situated adjacent to Mr. Gehlot’s constituency Sardarpura in Jodhpur. Mr. Ayub Khan was recently appointed a member of the Rajasthan Public Service Commission.
The Congress has left one seat, Bharatpur, for the Rashtriya Lok Dal, which was its ally in the 2018 Assembly election as well. The seat is held by Minister of State Subhash Garg, who is expected to contest from there again.
Pilani MLA J.P. Chandelia has been replaced with Peetram Kala, who retired as the Joint Director in the Education Department. The three women candidates announced in the list are Shikha Meel Barala (Chomu), Meena Kanwar (Shergarh), and Saroj Choudhary (Ahore).
Leaves for Delhi
While Congress leaders in the State were not willing to react to Mr. Joshi being dropped, some party workers supporting him gathered at the Pradesh Congress Committee’s headquarters here and expressed displeasure over his exclusion from the list. Mr. Joshi left for New Delhi, where he is likely to meet senior leaders of the party.
Mr. Gehlot, who was reportedly lobbying for fielding Mr. Joshi from Hawa Mahal again, did not react to the Central Election Committee’s decision to drop him. He congratulated the Congress candidates named in the list and asked them to ensure the party’s victory in their respective constituencies with hard work and dedication.
Mr. Joshi, who did not post any comment on his X account on Sunday, had a day before posted an inspirational short poem in Hindi on the social media platform, reposing his faith in hard work. The composition, roughly translated into English, said: “Dreams are realised when there is a truly hard work. Where there is a strong determination, the bond of trust also gets strengthened.”
Final list out
Late on Sunday night, the Congress announced its seventh and final list comprising 21 candidates, in which it retained Parliamentary Affairs Minister Shanti Dhariwal in his Kota North seat. There were earlier speculation that he could also be dropped like Mr. Joshi.
Gudamalani MLA Hemaram Chaudhary was replaced by former MP Sona Ram Choudhary, who came back to the Congress fold after quitting the BJP earlier in the day. Kaman MLA and Minister of State Zahida Khan has been repeated from the same seat despite strong opposition from the local party workers.
Among other candidates, Ved Prakash Solanki has been fielded from Chaksu, Manisha Gujjar from Khetri, Mahendra Singh Ralawata from Ajmer North, Rakhi Gautam from Kota South, Ram Lal Chohan from Jhalrapatan, Tejpal Mirdha from Khinvsar and Harendra Mirdha from Nagaur.
