In Ghanshyam Tiwari’s RS nomination, a message to former CM Raje

Talking to The Indian Express, Tiwari said: “I am grateful and indebted to the party’s central leadership for its decision. I would like to thank them and will try to fulfil their expectations.”

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A six-time MLA and a former minister in Rajasthan BJP government, including under Raje, Tiwari’s differences with Raje worsened during her tenure as the CM between 2013 and 2018.

Before the 2013 Assembly elections, Tiwari, along with Gulab Chand Kataria, Ramdas Agarwal and other senior leaders, had openly opposed Raje’s candidature for chief ministership. After the BJP won a landslide mandate under Raje’s leadership — first in the Assembly elections and later in the Lok Sabha polls — Tiwari was sidelined by the state leadership.

Tiwari then left the BJP in 2018 over differences with Raje and launched his own outfit BVP, ahead of the Assembly elections, but the BVP failed to win even a single seat. From winning the Sanganer Assembly seat with the highest margin in the state in 2013 as a BJP candidate, Tiwari ended up forfeiting his deposit in 2018. Asked about his years as a castaway and the outfit he floated after resigning from the BJP — Bharat Vahini Party (BVP) — he said Sunday: “All that is old now, I have forgotten the party (BVP) and all that.”

Then in March 2019, ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Tiwari joined the Congress in the presence of Rahul Gandhi, but left the party and joined BJP again in December 2020. By then, Satish Poonia, who represented the party’s central leadership, was firmly in command of the party’s state unit.

During Raje’s tenure as the CM between 2013 and 2018, Tiwari often accused her government of losing its way. At a show of strength in December 2015, under the banner of his outfit Pandit Deen Dayal Smriti Sansthan, Tiwari asked his supporters to help him return the “honour” and “pride” of Rajasthan and to bring the party in the state on the “right track”.

Employing abundant metaphors through scriptures, poetry and anecdotes, Tiwari had attacked the Raje government for deviating from what he considered were BJP’s core ideologies and beliefs, as manifested in “AB Vajpayee, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat” etc., and which lean towards its parent body RSS.

In June 2018, with the BJP observing the 43rd anniversary of Emergency as a ‘Black Day’, Tiwari said there was an undeclared Emergency in the country and in Rajasthan and resigned from the party. Recounting his days during Emergency, Tiwari had said that he “went to jail, was beaten up, and operated while underground” but “the undeclared Emergency at present in the nation and state was more dangerous than declared Emergency”.

In his letter to BJP’s national president Amit Shah then, Tiwari wrote: “The present state government, in connivance with some leaders in Centre, has been looting the state. Under the leadership of the chief of the state government, a coterie of some ministers and officers has only one aim: to pick the pockets of the citizens and rob the state’s resources.”

On his relations with Raje now, he told this paper: “My relationship with everyone is fine now. Sabsey pehle unki aa gayi thi, kal he (She was the first one to call [and congratulate] yesterday [Saturday] itself).”

Tiwari’s return to the mainstream signals the party high command’s intentions for Rajasthan, where it is said to be keen on having a ‘yes man’ as the CM, as opposed to Raje. Second, it also indicates that the Sangh, which has had issues with Raje, has had its way, since Tiwari has been a longtime RSS member.

On Saturday, after Tiwari’s name started doing the rounds for RS candidature, former state president of BJP Mahila Morcha, Madhu Sharma said: “Does the party hold more value for those who had left the party? Because the situation is such that those who are impartially performing their duties for the party are not being appreciated as much as those who had left the party.”

With Rajasthan having four Rajya Sabha vacancies, the Congress and the BJP have sufficient numbers to elect two and one RS MP, respectively.