Ordinary BJP worker, in his LS debut, challenges former CM Gehlot’s son

Jalore: The Jalore Lok Sabha seat has become high profile after Congress gave a ticket to Vaibhav Gehlot, the son of former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot. In front of Vaibhav, the BJP has fielded ordinary worker Lumbaram Choudhary. Now, not only the state but the entire country is eyeing this hot seat. Everyone was surprised when the BJP made a new experiment on the Jalore-Sirohi Lok Sabha seat and announced giving a ticket to Lumbaram Choudhary, a resident of Sirohi, who is an ordinary worker. The ticket of Devji Patel, who has three consecutive victories from this seat to his name, was cut, and instead, Lumbaram has been fielded. Apart from being the district president of BJP twice in Sirohi, Lumbaram has also been the head of the Panchayat Samiti and a member of the Zilla Parishad. Coming from a farming family, Lumbaram has been associated with the BJP and doing local-level politics for a long time.

Meanwhile, this is the second Lok Sabha election of Congress candidate Vaibhav Gehlot, who had last contested the election from the Jodhpur Lok Sabha seat against Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat but lost. This time Vaibhav is trying his luck from Jalore’s seat. There are many challenges before Vaibhav to contest strongly in the midst of the Modi wave and achieve victory. To help Vaibhav overcome these challenges, Ashok Gehlot himself has taken complete command of his son’s election campaign. Ashok Gehlot is making regular election tours in the entire parliamentary constituency and appealing to the voters to bless Vaibhav.

Vaibhav is being promoted as an outsider in this area, although the voters in this seat are very fond of outside candidates. Till now, external candidates have become MPs from this seat nine times. Among them, Sardar Buta Singh, who was the Home Minister of the country, became MP from Jalore four times. He won three times on the Congress ticket and was elected once as an independent. Apart from this, former national president of the BJP, Bangaru Laxman, and his wife, Sushila, who come from the southern state, were also MPs from here.

There are 12 candidates on this seat, including Otram of Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP), but the main contest is believed to be between Vaibhav Gehlot of Congress and Lumbaram Chaudhary of BJP. Talking about caste equations, this seat of Jalore-Sirohi districts is dominated by Scheduled Castes and Tribes and the number of its voters is more than 8 lakh. In the general category, Kalbi (Patel) is 3 lakh, Devas are 2.10 lakh, Rajput and Bhomia are 1.5 lakh, other upper castes, including Brahmin and Vaishya, are 3.20 lakh, and about 90 thousand voters are from the Muslim community.