After Madhya Pradesh, BJP may field big guns in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Telangana assembly elections

NEW DELHI: The BJP’s decision to field senior leaders, including three Union ministers, in the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls is not a ploy in isolation as the party is mulling to follow it up in other poll-bound states like Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Telangana with the aim to boost its prospects on seats where party nominees have struggled or rarely won in the past.
However, among the five poll-bound states, Rajasthan is headed for a peculiar contest with heightened prospects of infighting as the party seeks a mandate without projecting a chief ministerial candidate.
The most prominent faces being speculated to contest the state polls are Jal Shakti minister and Jodhpur MP Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, junior parliamentary affairs minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, Rajsamand MP Diya Kumari and Jaipur (Rural) MP Rajyavardhan Rathore.

However, Shekhawat will have an uphill task on hand in view of reports of one-upmanship among state leaders. The BJP top brass has decided not to project any chief ministerial candidate and the party has conveyed the message that the legislative party leader will be finalised by the elected MLAs.
Former CM Vasundhara Raje is said to be unhappy and has left no stone unturned to be projected as the party face. Shekhawat, seen as one of the frontrunners for the CM’s post in case BJP wins, will have to not only contend with strong resistance from CM Ashok Gehlot but also navigate infighting in the party.
Party veteran Suryakanta Vyas, a six-time MLA, and former MLA from Shergarh Babu Singh Rathore are said to be at odds with Shekhawat, who had won the Jodhpur Lok Sabha seat in 2019 by defeating Vaibhav Gehlot, son of CM Gehlot. Popular as ‘Jiji’, the 85-year-old Vyas, a prominent leader from the Pushkarna Brahmin community, is upset about reports of denial of ticket, for which she holds Shekhawat responsible, even as the unofficial rule of the party to avoid fielding anyone above 75 years is seen as the key factor.

In Telangana, the four MPs, including Union minister and state chief G K Reddy, are likely to be in the fray.
The deployment of central leaders in Madhya Pradesh, seen as a precursor to similar experiments in other states, surprised many who appeared on the list.
In Madhya Pradesh, two Union ministers, Narendra Singh Tomar and Faggan Singh Kulaste, will contest from seats that were won by the Congress in 2018, while three of the four other Lok Sabha MPs will fight in seats where the main opposition party had emerged victorious in the last polls.
Tomar, a former state BJP chief, was appointed in July as the convenor of the party’s election management committee in MP. A three-term MP, Tomar was an MLA for two terms till 2008 and has been in Lok Sabha since 2009.
Union minister Prahlad Singh Patel is a five-term Lok Sabha MP and has never been an MLA while Kulaste, a tribal leader, was last an MLA in 1992 before getting elected to Lok Sabha six times and Rajya Sabha once.
Party sources, meanwhile, have ruled out reports of CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan not contesting the polls.