Diya Kumari and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore are two of the seven Bharatiya Janata Party members of parliament who will be participating in the upcoming Rajasthan Assembly elections. This information comes from the initial list of 41 candidates released by the party on Monday.
In the forthcoming elections, Diya Kumari will be contesting from Jaipur's Vidhyadhar Nagar constituency, while Rathore is set to run from Jhotwara, also located in the Jaipur district.
It's noteworthy that Diya Kumari is a member of the former royal family of Jaipur.
Divya Kumari is an existing MP from Rajasamand while Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore represents the Jaipur Rural constituency.
A spokesperson for the BJP announced that the party's central election committee has given its approval for the names of these 41 candidates.
Of the seven parliamentarians, six are Lok Sabha MPs while Kirodi Lal Meena is a Rajya Sabha member.
Jhunjhunu MP Narendra Kumar will contest the elections from Mandawa seat, Alwar MP Baba Balaknath from Tijara, Ajmer MP Bhagirath Choudhary from Kishangarh, Jalore MP Devji Patel from Sanchore, and Meena will fight from Sawai Madhopur constituency.
Gurjar leader late Kirodi Singh Bainsla's son Vijay Bainsla (from Deoli-Uniara seat) and retired IAS officer Chandramohan Meena (Bassi constituency) also figured on the list.
The other BJP candidates are Jaideep Bihani (Ganganagar), Sanjeev Beniwal (Bhadra), Tarachand Saraswat (Dungargarh), Santosh Meghwal (Sujangarh), Bablu Chaudhary (Jhunjhunu), Vikram Singh Jakhal (Nawalgarh), Shubhkaran Choudhary (Udaipurwati), Shravan Choudhary (Fatehpur), Subhash Mahria (Lachhmangarh), Gajanand Kumawat (Danta Ramgarh), Hansraj Patel Gurjar (Kotputli), Prem Chand Bairwa (Dudu), Devi Singh Shekhawat (Bansur), Jairam Jatav (Alwar Rural), Jawahar Singh Bedam (Nagar), Bahadur Singh Koli (Weir), Rajkumari Jatav (Hindaun), Hansraj Meena (Sapotra), and Bhagchand Dakra (Bandikui).
Similarly, Rambilas Meena will contest from Lalsot seat, Rajendra Meena from Bamanwas, Shatrughan Gautam from Kekri, Arjun Lal Garg from Bilara, Balaram Mundh from Baytoo, Nanalal Aahri from Kherwara, Bansilal Katara from Dungarpur, Shankar Decha from Sagwara, Sushil Katara from Chorasi, Krishna Katara from Bagidora, Bhimabhai Damor from Kushalga
The BJP released its first list of candidates hours after the poll schedule was announced by the Election Commission. Polling for all 200 assembly seats in Rajasthan will take place on November 23 and votes will be counted on December 3. The assembly polls in Rajasthan will be conducted in a single phase.
Seats in Rajasthan
Sardarpura has remained a stronghold for the Congress party in Jodhpur district, consistently electing Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot to the Assembly since 1999 when he won a by-election. In the last election, he secured a significant 63 per cent of the vote.
On the other hand, Jhalrapatan is firmly under the BJP's influence and has been represented by former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje since 2003. Raje faced a relatively close contest in the last election, defeating Manvendra Singh Jasol, the son of former Union Minister Jaswant Singh, by a margin of about 35,000 votes.
Congress leader Sachin Pilot, who has been challenging Ashok Gehlot's leadership in the state, emerged victorious in the Tok constituency in 2018. This constituency has a substantial number of Gurjar, Scheduled Caste, and Muslim voters.
Laxmangarh has been won by the BJP only once in 2003. Rajasthan Congress President Govind Singh Dotasra has represented this constituency since 2008.
In the Jhunjhunu constituency, Jat leader Sis Ram Ola served three terms, and his son Brijendra Ola has been the winning candidate since 2008. Additionally, Rajasthan's first Assembly Speaker, Narottam Lal (from the Congress), hailed from this constituency. Another former Speaker, Sumitra Singh, secured victory here six times, four of those victories as a Congress candidate.
The rest of the seats include Churu, Udaipurwati, Kota North, Anta, Udaipur, Khajuwala, Pokaran, Bikaner West, Khinvsar and Osian.
