The ticket distribution in Congress and BJP has put political pundits in a dilemma. Earlier they were all speculating on “ifs and buts”. On one hand, they used to say that if Congress did not cancel the tickets of sitting MLAs, the BJP would benefit from the situation, while on the other hand, it was supposed the BJP that if tickets were not given to the supporters of former CM Vasundhara Raje, the Congress would profit from this situation.
The Congress has given tickets to most of the ministers and sitting MLAs in its lists released so far, while the BJP has given tickets to former CM Raje and her supporters. After this, experts are in a dilemma over how to predict who has the upper hand in this critical situation. The parties did not have much choice in the beginning. If Congress had thought of cutting the ticket of sitting MLAs then finding new candidates would have been difficult. However, Congress is fully expecting to repeat its government with the help of the schemes and policies of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot. In such a crucial situation, the party can not ignore him as it is certain that the public would vote for Congress only on the face of Chief Minister Gehlot, no matter who the candidate is.
The departure of the Gehlot government may lead to the closure of all the schemes like the old pension scheme, Chiranjeevi scheme of Rs 25 lakh treatment coverage, free ration, Indira Rasoi, 100 units of free electricity to the common people and 2000 units of free electricity to the farmers. This is because, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, himself, is not in favour of these schemes, as he has called them “freebies”. In addition to this, no BJP leader is ready to declare that the party will continue these schemes. However, the BJP-ruled states have requested the central leadership several times to implement schemes like OPS. The schemes like OPS and Agniveer had played a key role in the BJP’s defeat in Himachal Pradesh. Now, Congress aims to focus on these issues only during the campaign.
Senior party leader Priyanka Gandhi, while addressing a rally in Dausa, highlighted all these issues. On Wednesday, Priyanka will unveil the statue of former Union Minister Shishram Ola in Jhunjhunu and will address a public meeting in support of Vijendra Ola. It is anticipated that she will highlight the schemes like OPS, and may also slam the Agniveer scheme. On several occasions, Congress has termed the Agnipath scheme “fatal” for the country’s youths and demanded that the soldiers recruited under this scheme should be respected like regular soldiers.
Meanwhile, it is worth noting that Congress can retain power only on the grounds of Gehlot’s plans. On the other hand, the BJP high command also had no option other than Raje. But at the same time, the high command did not want to show its dependence on Raje. Therefore, as part of the strategy, no one was projected as the CM face of the saffron party.
The high command released the names of Raje and her supporters in the second list only when it realised that the situation was now under control and there was no risk of Raje and her supporters harming the party. Now a call on CM will be taken only after the BJP wins the polls.
