Rajasthan Assembly polls: BJP to field more women candidates this time, PM Modi to be star campaigner

PM Modi, women candidates, and OBC voters are the three key planks on which the BJP is preparing to fight the upcoming Rajasthan assembly polls.

The saffron party is likely to give more representation to women in Rajasthan. The party has set aside a higher percentage of tickets for its women leaders, party sources said. Tickets for women may go up to 20 per cent of the total seats in the 200-member Assembly.

Leaders of BJP’s Rajasthan unit have been directed to include women in the panels across districts.

“This year, each district panel will have at least 4-5 women candidates. Hence, there’s a chance for a female leader to get a ticket across 80 seats. While women leaders may not necessarily get tickets in all the 80 seats, but this will increase the chance for them. In previous polls, the names of women leaders were not even in panels,” a state unit leader said.

BJP is also preparing for a push for OBC candidates, said party leaders. The party is preparing to hold intellectual meets, choupals, and OBC sammelans, along with door-to-door campaigns, said leaders.

OBC leaders said that one of the key issues which they will highlight is the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) report. BJP accuses the Gehlot government for not issuing certificates to OBC in five districts of Rajasthan.

With a fair amount of infighting over the CM face, BJP is now moving ahead with PM Modi as the primary vote catcher for the party. He is slated to hold a slew of rallies in Rajasthan in the coming weeks.

“PM Modi's recent rallies have garnered a fair amount of positive response,” an MLA and senior leader of the party said.

Tickets for the elections, which several leaders were expecting to land in the coming days, could now be announced after the Shraddha Paksha.

In the 2018 elections, tickets were announced in the first week of November, a month ahead of the elections which were held mid-December.