Jaipur, Apr 25: Four Lok Sabha constituencies have become high profile seats in the second phase of elections scheduled on Friday as two union ministers, a Lok Sabha Speaker and former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s son are in the fray.
The two union ministers trying their fate at the hustings are Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Kailash Choudhary, while Vaibhav Gehlot and Om Birla are also in the fray. While Gajendra Singh Shekhawat is contesting from Jodhpur, Kailash Choudhary is contesting from Barmer, Om Birla from Kota and Vaibhav Gehlot from Jalore Sirohi.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat defeated Vaibhav Gehlot by over 2.74 lakh votes.
Vaibhav was fielded by the Congress from Jodhpur then, however, this time he is a candidate from the Jalore-Sirohi seat.
The BJP has fielded Lumbaram Choudhary from this seat. It had won by 2.61 lakh votes last time but it has cancelled the ticket of Devji Patel, who had won three-consecutive elections from Jalore Sirohi.
Kailash Choudhary is in a triangular fight for the Barmer Jaisalmer seat. There is a direct challenge coming in from Independent candidate Ravindra Singh Bhati. He won Assembly elections from the Sheo seat as an Independent after being denied a ticket by the BJP.
Further, the Congress has fielded Umeda Ram Beniwal from Barmer. Beniwal joined the Congress after resigning from the RLP. In the Assembly elections, he contested from Barmer and was defeated by Congress veteran Harish Chaudhary by a margin of mere 900 votes.
The Congress is banking on Beniwal due to his huge following in the Jat community.
So, given the triangular contest, everybody is sweating it hard in order to win.
Jodhpur is witnessing yet another tight contest as the Congress this time has fielded Karan Singh Uchiyarda who also comes from the Rajput community like Shekhawat.
So it’s Rajput Vs Rajput on this seat due to which the community’s votes will split and Jats and Vishnois will be the deciding factor here.
Shekhawat got a strong chunk of Rajput votes which was over four lakh in the last election, however, this vote bank will now be divided, said political sources.
In the second phase, Om Birla is facing a tough fight from Prahlad Gunjal from Kota. Birla had won last time by 2.79 lakh votes, however this time, the Congress has fielded ex-BJP leader Gunjal against him.
Gunjal has been a loyalist of Vasundhara Raje and the former CM and Birla’s relations are not very strong.
So now all eyes are focussed on whether Raje will help her loyalist Gunjal.
Further the Congress’ former minister Shanti Dhariwal and Gunjal were political rivals who faced each other in recent Assembly polls too. Gunjal was defeated by a thin margin of over 2,500 votes by Dhariwal.