Raje herself camped at the assembly throughout and personally supervised the polling process from morning till it was wrapped up towards the evening
Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje fiercely protected her turf and did not let any chance for the Opposition to sneak into BJP’s committed votes, including the ones pledged by regional parties and independent MLAs to NDA candidate Ram Nath Kovind. Raje herself camped at the assembly throughout and personally supervised the polling process from morning till it was wrapped up towards the evening.
Raje reached the Assembly to cast votes at 10.20 am shortly after the first lot of BJP and Congress MLAs had used their right of franchise. After casting her vote, she moved upstairs and sat in her chamber to monitor the ongoing polling right up to the moment when the ballot boxes were sealed. Senior ministers met her at regular intervals to brief her on who had cast their votes.
Since the chance of cross voting among 161 MLAs of the saffron party was down to zero, the prime worry in ruling camp seemed to be that of NPP and National Unionist Zamindara party (NUZP) MLAs who had announced support to NDA candidate Kovind. At the end of the exercise, a confident BJP claimed it had 171 votes cast in it’s favour.
Closed-door meetings
Sources said that Raje held closed-door meetings with both MLAs of Zanindara party, Kamini Jindal and Sonadevi Bawari, in which both MLAs reiterated their support to the NDA candidate. After casting votes, Jindal said, “This is not an election of parties, we have voted the best candidate. The state government supported us too.”
Escorting candidates
The ruling BJP camp wasn’t leaving anything to chance when it came to securing the votes of parties and candidates outside the party. Higher education minister Kiran Mahshwari was seen escorting both MLAs to the polling venue at the time of voting. It is worth mentioning that Sonadevi despite official announcement to BJP’s candidate for Rajya Sabha election had failed to register her vote. Taking lesson from this episode, Maheshwari escorted both MLAs to nsure no mistakes were made by the candidates. Similar roles were taken up by ministers Rajendra Rathore and Yoonus Khan.
Wooing the NPP
All four NPP MLAs led by Kirori Lal Meena were escorted by parliamentary affairs minister Rajendra Rathore to the polling room and it was ensured their votes went to Koving. NPP is an ally of NDA and as per earlier announcement the votes were cast in tandem. When asked who he had voted, Meena said, “As per the instructions given by party high command all four party MLAs voted to NDA candidate. This is an issue based support.”
The independent MLAs
Among the Independents, Manik Chand Surana and Anju Dhanka also had a meeting with Raje separately. Dhanka, who was the last voter of the count of 199, was escorted by transport minister Yunus Khan.
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