Raj polls: BJP banks on 'vikas' in Alwar, Cong refutes claims

Alwar: In north-west Rajasthan's Alwar, the BJP would go to the people banking on the developmental works, it claims, its government did in the last five years, amid the Congress' assertion of no growth and progress at all in the area.

The Congress accused the BJP of failing in providing drinking water and roads besides inducing an all out developmental lag in the district, notified as part of the National Capital Region.

The saffron party, however, has countered the Congress' claim citing benefits of the Centre's Ujjwala scheme and state's Bhamashah scheme.

Alwar with its 11 assembly seats, spread across 8,380 sq kms, has a population of 36.74 lakh with females constituting over 17.35 lakh, according to the 2011 census. About 30.17 lakh of them reside in rural areas. As per the 2013 assembly polls figures, Alwar's eleven assembly segments together had a total of 20,62,966 voters, including 11,08,086 males, 9,54,880 females and 13,572 service voters.

Alwar's total population includes around 9 lakh scheduled castes and scheduled tribes with Mevs of Muslim community having a sizeable presence in constituencies like Tijara and Ramgarh, infamous for mob lynchings by cow vigilantes.

In the 2013 assembly elections, the BJP had won nine out of 11 seats in Alwar but the election figures thrown up after a 2018 Lok Sabha bypolls, necessitated due to the death of Alwar's BJP MP Mahant Chandnath Yogi show that the electoral winds that blew in the favour BJP during the 2013 assembly elections, might have reversed in the favour of the Congress. The Alwar Lok Sabha seat falling vacant by Yogi's death was grabbed by Karan Singh Yadav of the Congress with a huge margin of over 1.96 lakh votes and he had demonstrated an edge over the BJP in most of the 11 assembly seats within the Alwar Lok Sabha constituency.

Yadav now is contesting the upcoming assembly polls from Alwar, imparting the requisite impetus to the Congress in all assembly segments across Alwar, where it had established a clear lead over the BJP.

"Our only agenda is development, the usual one since beginning. We want to fight the polls on basis of developmental works done in Rajasthan by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje," BJP's Alwar unit chief Sanjay Singh Narooka told PTI.

He said the BJP government has worked for upliftment of the poor, who have been largely benefitted from the healthcare schemes like Bhamashah and government's initiatives on education.

The BJP has provided LPG gas connections to the households and a Rs 1,000 crore worth Amrit scheme was being implemented to resolve the drinking water problem in Alwar, which falls in 'dark zone', he added.