With Congress releasing list of 33 candidates, the stage is set for contest on 33 constituencies. The BJP so far has announced candidates on 124 seats in two lists.
Of the 33 contests, currently competition on two constituencies will be much of public interest.
Nathdwara: Speaker of assembly C P Joshi would contest from his home constituency Nathdwara from where he had been MLA five times. He had lost by a solitary vote in 2008 elections against BJP's Kalyan Singh, who passed away in 2018 after a prolonged illness.
BJP has fielded Vishvaraj Singh Mewar, scion of erstwhile royal family of Udaipur, against Joshi.
Mewar is a rookie in politics but would be banking on his royal lineage while taking on a seasoned campaigner.
Mewar joined BJP a couple of days back and he has been fielded against one of the most experienced leaders of Congress, who had been union cabinet minister also in the past.
In last election, BJP has fielded Congress turncoat and Mahesh Pratap Singh, who is a member of erstwhile royal family of Kotharia, a place near Nathdwara. But he lost to Joshi.
Vishvaraj Singh will be banking heavily on 64,000 Rajput votes and 36000 tribals, who had been loyal to Udaipur royalty for long. The constituency also has 36,000 Brahmin votes, 22,000 scheduled caste votes and 16,000 Muslim votes in the constituency.
Lakshmangarh: Congress state president Govind Singh Dotasara will take on BJP's Subhash Mehariya from Lakshmangarh. Dotasara is a three time MLA from this constituency while Subhash Mehariya is a three time MP from Sikar parliamentary constituency.
Subhash Mehariya has a chance to avenge his defeat from Dotasara who defeated him in 2013 elections by a margin of over 10,000 votes. BJP has fielded Mehariya purposefully to engage Dotasara in his home constituency. With a strong competition in Mehariya, Dotasara will find little space to campaign for other candidates.
Subhash Mehariya had won Lok Sabha elections on BJP ticket and left BJP to join Congress in 2016. He contested 2019 election on Congress ticket from Sikar but lost to BJP's Sumedhanand Saraswati.
Mehariya came back to BJP in June this year and now he will be contesting elections against the state Congress chief.
The constituency has sizeable number of Jat votes which will be likely to be distributed between the two as both of them belong to Jat community.
The result will majorly depend on scheduled caste votes, which are also in large numbers.
Ram Kumar Kaushik is a seasoned journalist with over 25 years of experience across mediums. The architect of this news website, he is also a consultant with several media groups. He was formerly the group managing editor of ITV Network (NewsX, India News and The Sunday Guardian) and its digital products.
