Journalism of Courage
For the first time in bipolar,Rajasthan has any kind of a third front raised a consolidated challenge. It is led by BJP rebel Kirodilal Meena,the Dausa MP,who could end up playing the kingmaker should the assembly be hung between the Congress and the BJP.
The Meena heavyweight is the Rajasthan head of P A Sangmas National Peoples Party,which over the last fortnight has seen several Congress and BJP rebels taking refuge in it after being denied tickets from their own parties.
Interestingly,Meenas own position in the two constituencies he is contesting Sawai Madhopur and Lalsot is far from comfortable,with stiff competition in both. In Sawai Madhopur,Meena takes on two young freshers erstwhile Jaipur royal Diya Kumari from the BJP and Danish Abrar,son of late minister Abrar Ahmed,from the Congress. A large section of the dominant minority votebank is expected to back Danish,while Diya is banking on the lure of royalty and the results of the relentless doorbelling she has undertaken in the constituency.
Sawai Madhopur is the same seat in which Meena lost his last election after having represented it from 2003 to 2008. As the leader of a third front,Meena has statewide responsibilities bigger than his own seats and has been investing his energies looking for support in new regions. Here,he is banking on his familiarity with the constituency and held no rallies locally until earlier this week.
Neighbouring Lalsot,from where Meena has filed his other nomination,will see him facing a sitting and a former ministers Parsadi Lal Meena of the outgoing Congress cabinet and the BJPs Virendra Meena,former minister of state for finance. Parsadi and Virendra belong to the same village and the constituency has been buzzing with talk that the two might agree to give in to each other but never to Meena,an outsider. A reserved scheduled tribe seat,Lalsot,has a dominant Meena electorate that is largely cohesive and usually rises above party lines when the need comes.
Kidodilal Meenas wife,Golma Devi,a former minister in the Ashok Gehlot government,too is contesting from two seats Mahwa and Rajgarh-Lachhmangarh and is pitted against formidable opponents in both.
Even as he struggles to secure his own patch of the sky,there is no doubt that a hung assembly will mean only Meena will call the shots. Of the 133 seats in which the NPP has fielded candidates,Gudamalani (Barmer) was lost when its candidate,Narendra Kumar Dewasi,died in a road accident late on Monday night. Of the rest,Meena claims he is confident of winning at least 30 seats as the party is banking on the Meena belt covering Sawai Madhopur,Karauli,Bharatpur,Dholpur and parts of rural Jaipur,as well as the SC/ST-reserved seats in southern Rajasthan including Banswara,Udaipur,Dungarpur and Pratapgarh.
With a book as his partys electoral symbol,with medicine as his profession,Meena goes to voters with an air of erudition and offering knowledge that can lead them to development. This is the Quran,this is the Geeta… Knowledge is what leads you to the path of development, is his call in a state dominated so long by caste-based politics.
Meena and his wife are the only star campaigners of the party in the state,with P A Sangma and his daughter Agatha Sangma making an appearance at the massive Vijay Sankalp rally in Jaipur last month. Meena claims to have made the maximum number of helicopter yatras over the past few months,attending as many as over 400 sabhas across the state.
For all the talk about winning 30 seats and estimates about 15 being the enabling cutoff for a kingmaker,Meena has been maintaining that he will under no circumstance support either Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot or the BJPs CM candidate Vasundhara Raje. Meena had quit the party after falling out with Raje during clashes between Gurjjars and Meenas at Bayana in 2007 and 2008.
The BJP is,however,understood to have already sent him feelers and be trying to warm up to him. If the BJP does fall short of a majority and call for Meenas support,it is possible he will set his terms for who should not be chief minister.
