'Struggling' Congress compelled to expel two 'official candidates' in Rajasthan... practically BJP already wins :::::: Kirron Kher replaced in Chandigarh, Ahluwalia fielded from Asansol

The Congress in Rajasthan has been struggling to field strong candidates for the Lok Sabha elections and in effect has practically already lost a few seats.

The problems have been compounded by some 'official candidates' declaring their withdrawal from the race or publicly announcing that they were not keen to contest.

BJP fields 'local sardar' Ahluwalia from Asansol

Hence, in a rather unusual development, the Congress has now expelled two of its official candidates from the party: Arvind Damore, candidate for the Banswara Lok Sabha seat, and Bagidora assembly bypoll contestant Kapoor Singh. 

Both have been expelled for six years for refusing to abide by the party directive of 'withdrawing' their nominations.  The predicament is such that April 8th being the last day of withdrawal of nominations, the Congress now cannot cancel their tickets.

The Congress had, in a last-minute deal with the Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP), left both the Banswara and Bagidora seats to the outfit. But it failed to anticipate trouble from its official candidates, who refused to withdraw from the race.

This has effectively pitched the BAP nominees against the Congress. The BJP candidate from Banswara is Mahendrajeet Malviya, an old Congress hand and former minister. He had quit his Bagidora assembly seat, forcing the bypoll.

Earlier, the Congress had to change its Jaipur candidate Sunil Sharma with Pratap Singh Khachariyawas and Rajsamand nominee Sudarshan Singh Rawat with Damodar Gurjar, who was contesting from Bhilwara and was replaced there by former assembly speaker C.P. Joshi.

BAP founder and its Banswara candidate Rajkumar Raut could have been on a strong wicket with the support of Congress. But he now finds himself in an awkward position because a good number of votes may go to Damore owing to the confusion.

The BAP has said that with the Congress technically in the fray in the two seats, its alliance with the party was over.

The developments reflect the state of affairs in the Congress in Rajasthan, where the party drew a blank in the past two Lok Sabha elections (2014 and 2019). Rajasthan has 25 parliamentary seats and the Congress had been hopeful of winning a few this time.

The Congress has entered into an alliance on two more seats, giving Sikar to Amraram of the CPI(M), against the BJP’s Sumedhanand Saraswati, and Nagaur to Hanuman Beniwal of the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party, against Jyoti Mirdha of the BJP. The Nagaur contest is generating interest because Mirdha is a former Congress MP from the seat and Beniwal’s party could not make a mark in the 2023 assembly polls.

The BJP has dropped Kirron Kher, the sitting MP from the Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat, as it released the 10th list of candidates for the upcoming elections slated to begin on April 19. Sanjay Tandon, the BJP state president from Chandigarh, has been fielded in place of Kher, who is not well for sometime. 

The saffron party's 10th list comprises nine candidates -- one each in Chandigarh and West Bengal; and seven in Uttar Pradesh.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Kirron Kher won from the Chandigarh seat with 1,91,362 votes, defeating the then sitting MP, Congress leader Pawan Bansal who received 1,21,720 votes. 

In 2019 also, she won for the second time with 2,31,188 votes against Bansal's 1,84,218. This time, the Congress has fielded MP Manish Tewari from Chandigarh.

Meanwhile, the seven candidates fielded from Uttar Pradesh are Jaiveer Singh Thakur (Mainpuri), Vinod Sonkar (Kaushambi), Praveen Patel (Phulpur), Neeraj Tripathi (Allahabad), Neeraj Shekhar (Ballia), BP Saroj (Machhlishahr) and Paras Nath Rai (Ghazipur).

While Sonkar and Saroj have retained their seats, the BJP changed the candidates in the remaining five seats.

Kaushambi is a reserved seat for Scheduled Castes. Sonkar, who is also the Chairman of the Ethics Committee in the Lok Sabha, is eyeing a third straight victory. It was Vinod Sonkar-headed panel which recommended expulsion of Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Maitra. 

Meanwhile, Jaiveer Singh, the MLA from Barauli, has been pittied against Samajwadi Party's Dimple Yadav in Mainpuri, the SP bastion.

Also, to feature in the BJP's 10th list of candidates are SS Ahluwalia from West Bengal's Asansol Lok Sabha seat and Sanjay Tandon is from Chandigarh. Ahluwalia - though a Sikh - hails from Asansol and will now take on Trinamool nominee Shatrughan Sinha. Babul Supriyo had won 2014 and 2019 polls in Asansol on BJP nominee but in 2021 after he was dropped as central minister, Babul Supriyo joined TMC. 

In the by-poll, Shatrughan Sinha wrested the BJP seat. 

Interestingly in 2014 - Ahluwalia had won Darjeeling seat for the saffron party and in 2019 he was shifted to Bardhaman-Durgapur  - which is adjacent to Asansol. He could wrest the seat from Trinamool. 

This year, the BJP fielded its former president Dilip Ghosh from Bardhaman-Durgapur where he is pitted against former cricketer Kirti Azad of Trinamool Congress. The saffron party is hoping to win maximum seats from West Bengal. In 2019, to the surprise of many, the party had won 18 seats out of 42. 

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