Assembly Elections 2018: Commoners turn down royals in Rajasthan

The elections have been a mixed bag for royal family members who were in the fray this time.

While the public gave a thumbs up to some of them, few were denied the right to even represent them in the Assembly. 

Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, who hails from the royal family of Dholpur, won from Jhalrapatan. Contesting for the first time, Kota queen Kalpana Devi also saw a sweeping victory in Kota’s Ladpura constituency. This was her first election and she had joined the BJP just before the tickets were announced. The seat is considered safe for BJP and even though Bhawani Singh Rajawat remained aloof from the campaign, she registered a win.

Siddhi Kumari has won from Bikaner East on a BJP ticket. She will be going to Assembly for the third time. Congress leader and former Bharatpur royal Vishvendra Singh defeated Dr Shailesh Singh of BJP.  In 2013, Vishvendra defeated his (Dr Shailesh) father late Dr Digamber Singh.

While these former royals have been able to win the hearts of the people, many were defeated by commoners. Most shocking is the defeat of Rao Rajendra Singh from Shahpura royal family. He had been representing this constituency for the past three elections; he was also deputy speaker of the Assembly. Another royal and forest minister Gajendra Singh Khimsar has also not been able to win from his seat this time. He had fought from Lohawat and was defeated by Kisana Ram Vishnoi of Congress. 

Randheer Singh Bhinder from the Bhinder royal family was defeated in Vallabh Nagar. 

He has been defeated by Gajendra Singh Shaktawat of Congress. Bhinder had welcomed Raje during the Gaurav Yatra and Raje had shared the stage with him. 

He had fought for Janta Sena, an outfit he had launched. He had diverted all efforts to make his party win and had put up candidates in Udaipur too against BJP. But, in the end, he himself could not save his seat. 

Krishnendra Kaur Deepa, minister of state for tourism and cousin of Vishvendra Singh, who was contesting from Nadbai for BJP  has also lost the elections due to anti-incumbency.

DESPITE DEVELOPMENT

Even though Gajendra Singh khimsar worked a lot in sports department, however, probably anti incumbency has lead to his defeat. Krishnendra Kaur Deepa, minister of state for tourism and cousin of Vishvendra Singh, who was contesting from Nadbai from BJP has also lost the elections due to anti incumbency. Kota queen Kalpana Devi has won convincingly from Ladpura constituency in Kota.