The top 5 BJP faces in Rajasthan, some not in fray

A member of the erstwhile Scindia royal family of Madhya Pradesh, Raje was married to the erstwhile royals of Dholpur in Rajasthan. In the past, she has been an MLA from Dholpur, as well as a multiple-time MP from Jhalawar, and a Union minister, before becoming the CM.

Raje has been winning the Jhalrapatan Assembly seat in Jhalawar district since 2003. Her challenge at the 2023 Assembly elections is to stay relevant, while hoping to occupy the CM’s chair again, pipping younger challengers.

Ever since her government was voted out in 2018, Raje went missing from party events, especially during Satish Poonia’s tenure as state president from 2019 to early 2023. As Raje loyalists got sidelined, even her own future seemed uncertain.

While the BJP has not announced a CM face this year, for now, Raje will be content that the party has fielded most of her loyalists along with her former cabinet colleagues. That means if the BJP wins, she will have ample support for her third bid at the CM’s chair.

Rajendra Rathore (68), Taranagar

A seven-time MLA, Rajendra Rathore has not lost an election since 1990. He is presently the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Rajasthan Assembly.

The multiple-time cabinet minister is a Rajput who started his political career as a student, getting elected president of the Rajasthan University students’ union in the 1970s. Later, he joined the Janata Dal before switching to the BJP in the early 90s.

A protégé of former CM and Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, Rathore was also known to be close to Raje during her two tenures as CM.

While several BJP leaders are eying the Rajasthan CM post, Rathore has openly said he is not in the race. Ever since being made LoP, he has been attacking the Gehlot government over issues such as law and order and question paper leaks.

Instead of his current Assembly seat of Churu, Rathore will be contesting from Taranagar, also in the same district. He has earlier represented Taranagar, and is known to hold significant influence in the entire region due to his ability to draw Jat and Muslim votes, apart from Rajput ones.

Satish Poonia (59), Amer

Satish Poonia was the Rajasthan BJP president for most of the period when the party was out of power in the state. After over three years as president, when he continuously attacked the Gehlot government, he was replaced by incumbent state BJP president C P Joshi in early 2023. He is currently the deputy Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Rajasthan Assembly.

While Poonia is a first-time MLA, his association with the ABVP, BJYM and BJP goes back to the early ’80s. Poonia is known to be close to the RSS and has previously held posts such as the state president of the BJYM and general secretary of the BJP.

After unsuccessfully contesting few Assembly elections, he won from Amer in 2018, the year the Raje government was voted out. Shortly after that he was appointed the state BJP president.

As president, he remained in the news for his cold war with Raje, during which period he expelled Raje supporters such as Rohitash Sharma for indiscipline and sidelined her supporters, while giving important party posts to her detractors like Madan Dilawar.

Poonia belongs to the Jat community, which is numerically the most dominant caste in Rajasthan. He will once again contest from Amer.

C P Joshi (47)

A two-time MP from Chittorgarh, the Brahmin C P Joshi was a surprise choice when he was appointed as Rajasthan BJP president in March 2023, months before the Assembly elections.

Till then, Joshi had little role to play in state politics. Being an MP, his role remained restricted to his Lok Sabha constituency of Chittorgarh.

Since then, though, Joshi has been travelling across the state in the company of senior leaders like J P Nadda, holding meetings with party workers.

While the BJP has so far fielded seven of its sitting MPs, Joshi is not one of them. And it is still unclear if he will be fielded in the Assembly polls. However, the sitting BJP MLA from Chittorgarh, Chandrabhan Singh Aakya, has already accused Joshi and held him responsible for his not getting a ticket. Aakya has been replaced on the seat by MLA Narpat Singh Rajvi, the son-in-law of Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. Aakya has accused Joshi of holding a personal grudge against him since the time Joshi was a student leader of the Congress student body NSUI, from which Joshi had eventually moved to the BJP.

Gajendra Singh Shekhawat (56)

In recent years, Union Minister for Jal Shakti Gajendra Singh Shekhawat’s name has come up among the new generation of BJP leaders in the race for becoming the CM of Rajasthan.

Shekhawat is a two-time MP from Jodhpur, the stronghold of Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he defeated Gehlot’s son Vaibhav to win the seat for the second time.

Shekhawat was the “first choice” as the party’s Rajasthan unit president in 2018, but the proposal was rejected due to objections from stalwart and then CM Vasundhara Raje, with whom he is known to share a frosty equation.

Shekhawat has frequently exchanged barbs with CM Gehlot over a range of issues. Recently, after the CM targeted the Union minister over the Sanjeevani Credit Cooperative scam, Shekhawat filed a defamation case against Gehlot.

During the 2020 crisis in the Congress ranks, the Gehlot camp had accused Shekhawat of plotting to topple his government, citing voices in audio tapes that allegedly belonged to Shekhawat, who denied the charges.

It is still unclear if Shekhawat will contest the Assembly elections.