Congress relying on BJP rebel to stage a win in the hot seat of Churu

Churu: The political temperature in the Churu Lok Sabha seat has been soaring rapidly ever since the BJP cancelled the ticket of its twotime MP Rahul Kaswan, who won from here with a huge margin. In his place, the BJP nominated Paralympic medalist and international player Devendra Jhanjharia as its candidate. The Congress has fielded Rahul Kaswan, who left the BJP after being denied a ticket.

The Congress party’s strategy is to defeat the BJP with the help of its old pawns by entangling them in local political equations. Under this strategy, Rahul Kaswan is claiming that Rajendra Rathore is the reason he was denied the MP ticket. Although both Jhanjharia and Kaswan come from the Jat community, on the pretext of Rajendra Rathore, there is an attempt to make the election on this seat Jat versus Rajput.

Amidst all this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has curbed these efforts to a great extent by calling Devendra the candidate of Narendra’s choice in the election meeting in Churu while seeking votes for him. With this election meeting, Modi changed the political direction of this seat towards national issues and the Modi factor instead of local equations.

Talking about the candidature of Rahul Kaswan, he has inherited political experience. His father, Ramsingh Kaswan, was a four-time MP, his mother was an MLA and district chief, his grandfather was an MLA, and he himself has been a BJP MP twice. He also has a hold on the ground. BJP candidate Devendra Jhajharia is an international player. Even though he lacks political experience, Jhanjharia can definitely benefit from the Modi wave and strength of BJP’s organisation on the ground. Congress party’s opposition to not giving a ticket to even a single Muslim in State can harm the party here, as the party has in the past fielded a Muslim, Rafique Mandelia, twice as a candidate from here. This time, Congress has also cancelled his ticket and given it to BJP rebel Rahul Kaswan.

Meanwhile, the BSP and independents are also in the fray in the Churu seat, but no significant impact is visible. Rahul Kaswan is new in the Congress family, so how much the grand old party helps him will be important here because, with the arrival of Kaswan, the careers of many Congress leaders are at stake. The biggest plus point for the Congress is that it can mobilize Jat voters in its favour. At the same time, the challenge for the BJP to save this seat is to retain Jat voters along with other traditional votes in its favour. The election here is considered to be a close contest.