Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
Nagaur (Rajasthan), April 29
Rajasthan’s Nagaur segment is witnessing a spicy Lok Sabha contest this season. In the fray from this principally agrarian belt are two Hanumans and one daughter of the soil with locals all excited to see how this Bollywood kind of saga ends on May 23.
Such is the drama in the story that no one in Nagaur is even talking about CR Chaudhry, BJP’s sitting MP from the seat.
Reason: The BJP hasn’t fielded any candidate from Nagaur this time and is contesting the seat in alliance with Rashtriya Loktantrik Party. Joint alliance candidate and RLP founder Hanuman Beniwal is already giving Congress nominee from the constituency Jyoti Mirdha a tough time by straddling the segment with just one war cry.
“I am here to torch the Lanka of Congress,” Beniwal, a firebrand Jat leader of the state and a sitting MLA from Khinvsar in Nagaur goes around saying much to the discomfort of the Congress which has attempted something interesting to blunt the impact of Beniwal in the area.
The Congress, it’s common knowledge here, has worked behind the scenes to field Hanuman Beniwal’s namesake from the segment in trying to queer the pitch for RLP founder.
The strategy behind grand old party’s move is quite simple, says Mahendra Didal, a local trader.
“When Hanuman Beniwal formed the RLP on the eve of 2018 state elections, his poll symbol was a bottle. But RLP later got a new symbol, a tyre. Now the second Hanuman Beniwal in the fray from Nagaur happens to be contesting on the symbol of the bottle. This can potentially confuse RLP’s supporters many of who may still remember the party’s original election symbol of a bottle and may not be aware of a change. That’s the catch in the Hanuman story,” Didal explains, chuckling.
But RLP leaders are confident of pulling all core voters and say the “so called smartness” of fielding another Hanuman Beniwal will not help.
“With two Hanuman Beniwals in the battlefield it remains to be seen which way the RLP supporters go. The might of RLP organisation is at test here. They must send across a message about what the election symbol of the real Beniwal is. Otherwise there could be confusion,” says Raghuvir Choudhry of Nagaur.
While the BJP has backed Beniwal in acknowledgment of his growing clout among Jats, Congress’ Jyoti Mirdha is positioning herself in this election as the daughter of the soil.
Jyoti also has a Haryana connection with her sister married to Rohtak MP Deepender Hooda, the son of former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
Arithmetically speaking, Nagaur LS seat is tilted in favour of the Congress which has five sitting MLAs from here as against NDA (BJP and RLP) which has three, including Beniwal. But voters say the outcomes cannot be predicted yet. Both BJP and Congress leaders say their canvassing will peak once star campaigners touchdown ahead of voting on May 6. Until then it is between the two Hanumans, the ex-MP and Nagaur’s voters.
from The Tribune http://bit.ly/2Wg8G7s
via Today’s News Headlines
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