Is it checkmate for Ghanshyam Tiwari, Suman Sharma and the likes?

Ramcharan Bohra’s nomination as the worthy successor to Girdhari Lal Bhargava’s lost legacy in Jaipur isn’t the defining moment of BJP’s ticket distribution for Parliamentary seats in state. The crux, however, lies in senior-most leader Ghanshyam Tiwari getting a short shrift from the party at a time when the season was just about right for him to bloom in the national polity. Only he knows the enormity of what he has missed. And, of course chief minister Vasundhara Raje, who makes an example out of him, when the circumstances are conspiring to get him another shot at the Parliament.

But in this poll madness, despite the love-hate strain that the politicians have come to carry ahead of it, and the natural progression of all events leading to a victor and a loser, there are quite a few within the state unit, who are staring at a void, an emptiness after a marathon innings whose momentum has fallen short of the finishing line. They are the ‘chokers’ of Team BJP – high on consistency (arguably), but bowing out in the final lap. Tiwari is just one of their ilk.

Suman Sharma, a Raje aide, must be the most miserable of the lot. Thrice, now, she has been denied the big ticket. She lost out to Ashok Lahoty in the race for Civil Lines seat in 2008 polls.  Lahoty was defeated in polls despite his last-minute coup. Arun Chaturvedi got the better of Sharma in 2013, by ensuring his ticket from Civil Lines even before Raje blew the Parivartan bugle. And, now.

Next move: She’s definitely not going to continue organising mehendi programmes for the women’s front. A political posting is in order, but will it suffice?  

Like Sharma, RSS poster boy Satish Poonia has also retreated into the shadow of his peers like Rao Rajendra Singh. An organisational general secretary, the soft-spoken worker never took the bait even when it was handed to him on a platter because suit his taste. He refused a ticket twice only to accept the opportunity last year. He wasn’t third time lucky, though, as he ended up losing the seat by just a few hundred votes. His comeback vehicle as a parliamentarian from Jaipur (rural) seat hit a dead-end after Rajyvardhan Rathore parachuted on his home turf.

Devi Singh Bhati and Digambar Singh are poles apart as leaders and their affiliations are like chalk and cheese. But both of them lost the Assembly polls when the going was ‘easier’, Bhati having won theKolayat seat eight times and Singh managing to wrest his seat from Bharatpur royal Vishwendra Singh in 2008. While Bhati’s chapter, despite an illustrious political record seems closed, Digambar may still make hay as Raje continues to shine over the political landscape in state.  

Former MPs Subhash Meheriya and Jaskaur Meena and former minister Madan Dilawar also seem to be in the twilight of their career. But, it is Tiwari whose fate is anyone’s guess.

Between him and Raje, the bridge was never mended (after it was burnt). He retained his ticket to Sanganer constituency and won by the maximum margin any legislator could muster in the December polls. But that was it. He didn’t feature in Raje’s Cabinet as juniors grabbed a seat for themselves in Sarkar.

Even in the Parliament elections, he was never a favourite even in the party’s line up. But things changed, and quite dramatically at that, when Congress fielded two Brahmin heavyweights from Jaipur and Jaipur (rural seats). Tiwari, who championed himself as a messiah of Brahmins – he took out a self-styled yatra, got his sons to take centre stage – was never in more prominence to combat the Congress double whammy in Jaipur. But, it was not his day. Next Stop? Cabinet berth may not be a long shot, but will he accept it? Some still imagine him to return as the head of the state unit. No one, though, can tell when.