Denied tickets in fourth list, Congress leaders, supporters protest in Rajasthan

Disgruntled Congress leaders and their supporters on Wednesday protested in many pockets of the state after they were denied tickets in the fourth list of Congress candidates.

A day after the party released its fourth list of candidates for the Assembly elections scheduled to be held on November 25, Congress workers took to streets, burnt tyres and effigies, shot off letters to the party leadership, sat on dharna. Some Rajasthan Congress leaders even resigned from party posts.

Incumbent MLA from Baseri, Khiladi Lal Bairwa, who is also the chairperson of the Rajasthan SC Commission, resigned from the post after being denied a ticket.

The Congress on Tuesday released a list of 61 candidates, denying tickets to seven sitting Congress MLAs comprising Bairwa, Bharat Singh Kundanpur, Bharosi Lal Jatav, Heera Lal Meghwal, Johari Lal Meena, Babu Lal Bairwa, and one independent MLA supporting the Congress government, Rajkumar Gaur.

“I have been punished for speaking the truth and standing by the party leadership. I did not resign that day and was at CM residence on September 25, 2022,” Bairwa told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday.

On contesting the elections, he said, “I will do whatever supporters will say.”

Bairwa, a supporter of former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot, had opened a front after more than 90 MLAs had submitted their resignation to the Assembly speaker, opposing the CLP meeting called on September 25, 2022 to determine Ashok Gehlot’s successor as chief minister. Gehlot was then a frontrunner for the post of Congress president.

In Jaipur, supporters of Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) minister Mahesh Joshi protested outside the state Congress office demanding a ticket from the Hawa Mahal seat as his name did not appear in the fourth list. Joshi and UDH minister Shanti Dhariwal were served show cause notice by the party high command for holding a parallel meeting against the CLP meeting on September 25, 2022.

MLA from Sangod, Bharat Singh Kundanpur wrote to the state party in charge Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa alleging that he was denied a ticket under a conspiracy and it was given to an outsider. Kundanpur has been vocal against the Gehlot government in the past. Another MLA from Rajgarh-Laxmangarh, Johari Lal Meena sat on dharna outside the residence of senior Congress leader Bhanwar Jitendra

Singh.