Rajendrasingh Gudha

Of late, Gudha, a former BSP leader, had virtually overtaken MLA Ved Prakash Solanki as the most outspoken leader in the Sachin Pilot camp, and hence the action was a long time coming, party leaders say, even though it was still unexpected.

Gudha had won as an MLA from Udaipurwati on a BSP ticket in 2008, only to merge with all five other BSP MLAs into the Congress a year later. Promptly, Gehlot, who was the CM then too, had made Gudha a Minister of State for Tourism. In 2013, Gudha lost Udaipurwati on a Congress ticket, the Congress lost power simultaneously, and Gudha made his way back to the BSP. In 2018, he won back the seat on a BSP ticket and, again, a year later, he and the other five BSP MLAs merged into the Congress. In 2021, Gudha was back as MoS in a Gehlot government.

Gudha, 55, has not just proved adept at adapting between parties, but also at reading the winds within the Congress and changing course accordingly. And so, since the first half of 2022, when it began to appear to him that the Congress would back Pilot in the coming months, he shifted camps. In hindsight, Gudha appeared to have got it wrong.

A two-term MLA, Gudha derives his surname from his ancestral village in the Udaipurwati tehsil of Jhunjhunu. He identifies “MLA pension” as his source of income, while his wife Nisha Kanwar runs a dairy. They have two children — a son and a daughter. As per his 2018 affidavit, he and his wife own property worth approximately Rs 95 lakh.

Gudha officially joined Shiv Sena in September.