The battle for the top spot in the Rajasthan Assembly intensified on Wednesday with senior Jat leaders descending on Jaipur to exercise their influence even as eight among the 18 Congress’ Jat MLAs openly endorsed Ashok Gehlot as the best chief ministerial candidate. Mahendra Chowdhary, one of the eight Jat MLAs supporting Gehlot, said, “Eight of the 16 Jat MLAs in the Congress have come together to support not only Gehlot but any decision that the high command takes to this effect. The Congress won the elections from the votes of 36 different communities in the state and it will be unfair for any one community to demand preference.” He added that it was a misconception that the Jats would vote against the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections if Gehlot was made CM. Chowdhary said, “A non-Jat CM may even get more seats for the Congress than what the party got in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls. Such demands will only isolate the Jat community from other castes in Rajasthan. Which is why Congress Jat leaders, who were considered powerful, lost the elections.”The isolation is evident from the results of the 2008 Assembly elections wherein three powerful Congress Jat leaders — Narayan Singh, Harendra Mirdha and Hari Singh — were routed in Jat-centric seats. A senior Congress Jat leader said, “In this election, Brahmins, OBCs, Muslims and Rajputs together voted out big Jat leaders in the BJP and Congress.” To drive his point home, he added that in Nagaur, considered a Jat heartland, Mirdha lost to BJP’s Habibur Rahman. AICC observers deployed in the Shekhawati belt, which includes the three Jat dominated districts of Churu, Jhunjunu and Sikar, confirmed that they got the Jat equation wrong. “The results make it apparent that in the Shekhawati belt, voters from all non-Jat communities decided on first evicting big Jat leaders, then candidates who played the Jats versus other communities card and then those leaders who played the caste card. What mattered to them was not Congress or BJP but only the defeat of Jats as they had grown very powerful,” said an AICC observer on the condition of anonymity.On Wednesday, veteran Jat leader Parasram Maderna, his son and newly elected MLA from Osian, Mahipal, his son-in-law Harendra Mirdha who lost the polls from Baytoo, MLA Col. Sonaram, a frontrunner for the top spot, and PCC treasurer K C Chowdhary were in Jaipur to meet PCC president C P Joshi and Gehlot. However, senior Congress leaders said a decision would be taken only after the CLP meeting on Thursday. The eight MLAs who are supporting Gehlot include Mahendra Chowdhary, Ramlal Jat, Mangala Ram Godara, Ruparam Dudi, Nathuram Sirodia, Rita Chowdhary, Dilip Chowdhary and Gangajal Meel.
