From verbal duels to running for causes, MLA Baljeet Yadav courts spotlight and controversies

Four years later, Baljeet is back in the news for his unique mode of protest. Clad in black on Monday, he ran in Jaipur’s central park from sunrise to sunset to draw attention to unemployment, unavailability of water, electricity for farmers, among other issues. He had also similarly run in March 2022.

“Ten months ago, I ran to drag the attention of the government towards these issues. People from villages mostly seek employment in the Army or as teachers and police. Question papers get leaked in teacher recruitment examinations, constable recruitment examinations…The question paper is set so tough as if it is the IAS examination…That is why we are fighting,” Baljeet told reporters.

The 44-year-old MLA was also in the news in January, when he launched a scathing attack on Alwar BJP MP Balak Nath after a video of the latter threatening a DSP rank police officer had gone viral.

Talking to reporters then, Baljeet had said, “I want to tell Balak Nath ji that as long as you are alive, when you think you have too much power, then not only the kids of this one official, if you even try to look at any good person’s children with your destructive glare, I will beat your face red. Your act has insulted the Hindu religion. I appeal to the saint community to ostracise you. Till your last breath Balak Nath, you will not forget Baljeet Yadav. Balak Nath sadhu nahin hai. Ye bhagwa vesh mein bhediya hai Balak Nath (Balak Nath is not a saint, he is a wolf clad in saffron).”

In 2018, Baljeet had joined the Congress before the Assembly elections but ended up contesting as an Independent after the party denied him a ticket from Behror. He clinched the seat by defeating both the Congress and BJP candidates. His influence in the constituency was evident in the 2013 polls too, when he finished as the runner-up despite contesting as an Independent candidate.

Baljeet continues to hold sway in the constituency. He is known to be a fierce opponent of Nath – who is reportedly looking to contest the upcoming Assembly elections from Behror – and former BJP minister Jaswant Singh Yadav, who had won the seat several times in the past.

In December 2020, Baljeet went to a stadium armed with sticks to challenge Jaswant Singh for a “duel”. The Behror MLA claimed he was replying to a challenge, and proceeded to dare the former minister’s son in a racing competition with him.

In November 2022, he showered flowers from a helicopter on the people of Behror as a mark of “gratitude for their support”. It landed him in a spot though after a local resident demanded compensation for the death of his buffalo, which he claimed died due to the sound of his helicopter.

In 2017, when the Pehlu Khan lynching incident had set off a storm in the state, Baljeet supported the men Khan named as his attackers. He claimed that “innocent” men from Behror had been framed in the case. The state police had subsequently given a clean chit to the six men that Khan named.