With the Lok Sabha elections around the corner, there is growing pressure from the Congress ranks egging the senior leaders, including the two former Chief Ministers Ashok Gehlot and Bhupesh Baghel, to lead from the front by contesting the polls.
In 2019, the Congress won 52 seats across the country, However, out of the 184 seats in the nine northern States — Punjab, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, it got only 12 seats.
According to sources, at a recent meeting of the party functionaries in Rajasthan, former speaker C.P. Joshi exhorted all the senior leaders, including former Chief Minister and party State president Govind Singh Dotasra, to contest. “Last time, Ashok Gehlot’s son Vaibhav contested from Jodhpur and lost the seat by a margin of 2.74 lakh votes. Instead of the son, we would like the father to contest, so that we can wipe out the ignominy of not winning a single seat in two consecutive general elections,” a Congress Parliamentarian from Rajasthan said. However, Mr. Gehlot has been keeping the cards close to his chest.
