Vasundhara Raje, the former CM of Rajasthan, is becoming the biggest obstacle to BJP’s rise in the state. In the last few decades, Ashok Gehlot and Vasundhara Raje have exchanged the CM chair every five years and none of them wants a new entrant in the political scene of the state.
Therefore, when Sachin Pilot was trying to break the Rajasthan Congress and come to BJP in exchange for CM chair, she halted Pilot’s entry into the party because this would have badly harmed her political prospects in the state.
For the last few months, the party is trying to sideline her because the high command knows that they cannot win the 2023 assembly election under her leadership. She no longer enjoys mass popularity and some of her decisions during her last tenure as CM have been very unpopular.
Vasundhara has sensed the fact that BJP central leadership wants to get rid of her as soon as possible and wants new young faces to take over the party leadership. Her pictures have been removed from party headquarters in Rajasthan, in a clear message that she no longer enjoys the confidence of the top brass.
Now the scion of the Scindia dynasty is trying to fight back and has promoted a collective unit called ‘team Vasundhara’. In their latest step to challenge the high command, the team Vasundhara has appointed farmer leaders in the Kisan morcha, with the letterhead that reads ‘team Vasundhara Raje Rajasthan’.
Previously the party high command gave notices for anti-party activities to Vasundhara loyalists like Rohitashav Sharma. Sharma responded to the notice and said, “If the state president hates my face, then he could have spoken with me over the telephone. He should have consulted with me first before sending the notice.”
Comparing Vasundhara Raje with political stalwart Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, Sharma had said, “If a survey is conducted, Vasundhara Raje is the choice of 9 out of 10 people. Like Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, Vasundhara Raje is the leader with the best political personality. Like Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, Vasundhara Raje is the biggest face of Rajasthan politics who twice brought 130 and 163 seats for the party in the state.”
Raje is becoming the biggest obstacle in BJP’s future prospects.
The general sense of aversion towards Vasundhara Raje has finally resulted in a semi-breakaway of her from the BJP. The party’s central leadership, meanwhile, seems to have understood that the slogan which could be heard in every nook and corner of Rajasthan in 2018 was no joke. “Modi tujhse bair nahin, Vasundhara teri khair nahin,” was a chant that could be heard on the streets of Rajasthan before the assembly polls in 2018. Of course, back then, the BJP leadership did not realize the seriousness of the sentiment.
Now, they seem to have. And the party will not tolerate her and her loyalists’ activities. Very soon, she would be summoned by the top leadership and shown the door like many of the BJP’s leaders in Uttarakhand. If the party is not ready to tolerate Yeddyurappa then her activities will definitely not be ignored by team Nadda and Amit Shah.
