After 35 years, the Congress has turned the clock back as it seems when Raghu Sharma, a Brahmin, became it’s official candidate on Wednesday in Ajmer.
Poll times are strange times though sometimes for decades, parties don’t want to change their strategy and on the other hand, some party do change their tack. After 35 years, the Congress has turned the clock back as it seems when Raghu Sharma, a Brahmin, became it’s official candidate on Wednesday in Ajmer. It was “official” that the Congress would not toe the caste politics which was the dominant theme till date!
Sharma and his chief rival BJP’s Ramswaroop Lamba on Wednesday filed their nominations. Either a Rajput or a Jat represented the seat so far for a maximum period of time in the past 35 years, except when Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee chief Sachin Pilot in 2014, a Gurjar by caste was fielded. Meanwhile, riding on the sympathy wave, the BJP has fielded Lamba, son of Sanwer Lal Jat whose untimely death vacated the seat.
Post that, neither the BJP nor the Congress “showed faith” on a Brahmin and in most cases, their candidates were either Jats or Rajputs whose growing clout in terms of population, changed the poll mathematics steadily. Since 1989, Rasa Singh Rawat, a Rajput, won the seat five times as BJP candidate seat while only two times, Congress won the seat -- Prabha Thakur in 1998 and Pilot in 2009.
Sanwer Lal Jat, a strong Jat leader, stopped Pilot’s repeat in 2014 general election when Modi wave was at its peak. Now, the Congress has once again entrusted faith on a Brahmin candidate.
DNA delves deep
- A Brahmin candidate since Independence won the seat five times consecutively till 1980.
- Mukut Bihari Lal, Bashweshwer Nath Bhargava, who were freedom fighters, had registered victory. Both MPs were from the Congress
- Acharya Bhagwan Dev was the last Brahmin who won the seat as a Congress candidate in 1980
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