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How political tourists enjoy Rajasthan hospitality

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Overwhelmed by the efforts put in by his hosts to make his stay comfortable during his visit to Rajasthan in the 70s, late Jyoti Basu had remarked, “Hospitality of Rajasthani people has no parallel.”

Basu had made the comment in different context, but his words seemed to have caught the fancy of many leaders from other states. They came here as ‘political tourists’, contested elections and went on to win without much difficulty against their local rivals.

In last three decades, politicians from not just neighbouring Haryana, Punjab, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, but from places as far as Mumbai and Andhra Pradesh have come here to try their luck in Assembly, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, elections. But, barring a few, others never returned to their home state.

In the current assembly there are two MLAs who are known as ‘outsiders.’ Congress MLA from Begun, Rajendra Singh Bidhuri is originally from Delhi while independent MLA from Malpura, Ranveer Pahalwan hails from Haryana.

In fact, it all began in 1972, when Sumitra Bai, sister of Rao Virendra Singh, fought the Lok Sabha elections on the Vishal Haryana Party ticket from Alwar, she lost and for nearly a decade no leader from outside looked at Rajasthan.

In 1980, Rajesh Pilot who was originally from Meerut successfully contested on a Congress ticket from Bharatpur, which paved the way for others to test political waters in Rajasthan. At the peak of militancy in Punjab, the political career of Congress stalwarts, Buta Singh and Balram Jakhar, was at stake. And, they were shifted to Rajasthan. Balram Jakhar fought from Sikar, while Buta Singh contested from Jalore (reserved) in 1984. Both of them won and even after the return of normalcy in Punjab, they chose to stay back in Rajasthan.

It was during the 1989 Lok Sabha elections that the doyen of Haryana politics, Devi Lal, decided to contest from Sikar and defeated another ‘outsider’ Balram Jakhar. Devi Lal’s grandson, Ajay Singh Chautala, made a debut in Rajasthan politics when he entered the state Assembly from the Datanramgarh constituency of Sikar district and again in 1993 from the Bhadra constituency of Hanumangarh district.

The BJP too has fielded many outsiders. Former BJP MLAs Jeetram Choudhary, Mahant Chandnath and Atar Singh Bhadana, and former minister Kartar Singh who contested against Sachin Pilot in Dausa in 2004, are all from Haryana.

In fact, Sachin Pilot’s mother Rama Pilot too became MP and MLA here. BJP’s former national president lost against Buta Singh in Jalore in 1999, but in the next election his wife Sushila took the revenge. In the same year, filmstar Dharmendra won the Lok Sabha election from Bikaner on BJP ticket.

But, no one can match late choudhary Tayyab Hussain’s feat, who was a minister in three states.

He originally belonged to Haryana, but served as a minister in Rajasthan and Punjab. His daughter Zahida, MLA from Kaman, is currently the parliamentary secretary.

However, this boom in ‘political tourism’ has finally begun to test the patience of local politicians.

Leaders, both in the Congress and the BJP, have been loathing the growing tendency in their parties to field leaders from other states to contest elections in assembly, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha polls and the way these guests have become permanent squatters.

 There were murmurs of protest in both the parties at the time of last Rajya Sabha election when leaders from other states were nominated by the Congress and the BJP. The former had fielded Anand Sharma, who was from Himachal Pradesh while the latter chose Ram Jethmalani who lived in Delhi. Earlier, the BJP had also sent Najma Heptullah to Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan.

The leaders in both parties feel that it is injustice as well as painful for the locals who put in so much effort to nurture the constituency when the parties field an outsider. “If outsiders come and claim our turf where do we go,” they ask.

They also blame voters who prefer outsiders over local candidates. According to them, if only voters reject ‘outsiders’ the party would not dare to take the risk of fielding them.

For now, the local aspirants can’t do much, but pray ‘atithi tum kab jaoge.’

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