Lok Sabha polls 2024: BJP pins hope on RSS-backed Damodar Agarwal in Bhilwara

Bhilwara is among the 13 seats where polling will be held in the second phase on April 26.

Jaipur: BJP announced its candidate for Bhilwara, Damodar Agarwal, replacing its incumbent MP Subhash Baheriya. 

With this replacement, BJP has now dropped 11 of its incumbent MPs out of the total 25 seats in Rajasthan for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections

Agarwal, 69, state organisation minister in BJP,  has been an active member of the party. He spent time in jail under the MISA during the Emergency. With a strong RSS background and a postgraduate, he has been a pracharak also. He has been district head of the Bhilwara unit twice with now being a minister in the party’s organisation. He has also been part of the state president C P Joshi’s election organisation and management team. 

Political observers say his long association with RSS made him a favourite for the Bhilwara seat. BJP was in a fix on the choice of candidate for Bhilwara as there is said to be a tussle amongst the BJP and RSS unit in the district and that is why pinning down the right candidate took such a long time. With Agarwal getting the ticket, it is being presumed that RSS perhaps won the round this time. But this would be Agarwal's first electoral contest. 

Also there is bound to be some anger in the Bhilwara district unit as replacing Subhash Baheriya is not going to go down well. A three time MP, Baheriya won the 2019 election with one of largest victory margins. He had defeated  Congress’s Rampal Sharma by over 6 lakh votes. Baheriya himself had received 9,38160 votes for himself. He earned a vote share of around 71.56% in 2019. In 2014, Baheriya had a vote share of 57.09%

Moreover Agarwal would be up against Congress stalwart C P Joshi, former Union minister and Vidhan Sabha speaker. Political analysts say Congress could not have found a better candidate than Joshi. When he was the state president, he ensured the victory of Congress in 2008 but himself lost by one vote to BJP candidate Kalyan Singh Chauhan in 2008 in Nathdwara and hence his only chance to become the state’s Chief Minister. A strong influential leader in the Mewar Bhilwara region, he was close to Rahul Gandhi earlier. He was Union minister for Rural Development. In 2009, C P Joshi had won this seat over BJP’s Vijendra Pal Singh, with a margin of over 1,35,368 votes and had a 54.76% vote share.   

BJP’s replacement of 11 incumbent MPs may not augur well for the party, which has won all 25 seats in the past two elections. BJP has replaced Kanakmal Katara in Banswara (ST), Ranjita Koli in Bharatpur (SC), Rahul Kaswan in Churu, Devji Patel in Jalore-Sirohi, Arjunlal Meena in Udaipur (ST), Ramcharan Bohra in Jaipur, Narendra Kumar in Jhunjhunu, Nihalchand Meghwal in Sriganganagar, Manoj Rajoriya inDholpur-Karauli, Jaskaur Meena in Dausa and finally Subhash Baheriya in Bhilwara. BJP this time is depending on many fresh faces and workers active in the party and organisation. 

It has given five tickets to women out of the total 25. The five are namely Jyoti Mirdha for Nagaur, Manju Sharma for Jaipur, Mahima Vishwaraj Singh from Rajsamand, Indu Devi Jatav from Dholpur-Karauli, Priyanka Meghwal from Sriganganagar.