Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Minister of State for Agriculture and Family Welfare in the Narendra Modi Cabinet, is the sitting Member of Parliament from Jodhpur. His challenger in 2019 is Vaibhav Gehlot, son of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, a former five-time MP of Jodhpur. Shekhawat won the previous Lok Sabha Elections from here in 2014 with a 4 lakh-plus margin, on the back of the “Modi wave”. Shekhawat, in an interview with The Kochi Post talks about the Modi Wave, the issues facing Jodhpur and the battle at hand.

You are the sitting MP from Jodhpur having won the 2014 elections with a huge margin. How is this election different from 2014?

On a road trip from Jodhpur, the heart of Rajasthan, towards India’s largest constituency – Barmer – one witnesses the land getting parched by the mile, marking the drought-like conditions in the area.

Despite elections hitting a crescendo across the country, the enthusiasm also seems to get drier as you travel here. The closer one moves towards the border constituency from Jodhpur, you see fewer party posters, flags, and billboards. The loss of hope among the residents of the area could be one of the major reasons. This place fails to provide basic facilities like water and electricity to its denizens. Several panchayats do not have access to basic health and education facilities due to the lack of primary health centres and primary schools.

Diya Kumari, 48, member of the erstwhile royal family of Jaipur and former MLA of Sawai Madhopur, has been fielded by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Rajsamand.

Despite being a Rajput stronghold, she is considered an ‘outsider’ in Rajsamand for hailing from a different Rajput sub-caste. Kshatriya Mahasabha, a local Rajput organisation, has reportedly opposed Kumari’s candidature stating that her ancestors were involved with Akbar during the Haldighati battle, and hence, cannot be considered as their own. Nevertheless, the former princess has secured the backing of sitting Rajsamand MP Hariom Singh Rathore and members of other royal families of Mewar.

The traditional Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) strongholds of Bhopal and Indore are set to witness tough contests this time around. These constituencies haven’t returned a Congress MP since 1989 but that could change as a resurgent Congress seems determined to wrest the two prestigious seats from the BJP.

Bhopal has been receiving a lot of attention across the country after the BJP fielded Malegaon blast-accused Pragya Singh Thakur against Congress’ two-time Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh. Thakur is still undergoing trial in the case and has terror charges slapped against her. While Digvijaya Singh has been touring the constituency and meeting with community leaders, Pragya Thakur has yet to commence her campaign. Singh has even come up with a vision document for Bhopal in quick time.

Meanwhile, Pragya Thakur has been making news for her controversial statements. Her claim that former Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare got killed in the line of duty on account of her ‘curse’ attracted widespread derision. Although she withdrew her remarks on Karkare, the damage had been done. The controversial statements didn’t stop at that. An FIR has been filed against her over her comments regarding the Babri Masjid demolition; she had claimed that she was at the site with karsevaks when the Masjid was pulled down. Thakur has also invited the Election Commission’s ire.

21 April 2019
Guwahati, Assam

Priyanka Gandhi’s roadshow in Silchar for sitting MP Sushmita Dev last Sunday marked a new innings for the Indian National Congress (INC) in the North East. Gandhi landed in the epicentre of the Barak valley, which has been embroiled in tensions over the controversial citizenship amendment bill (CAB) that proposes to include non-Muslim migrants as citizens.

Unlike other parts of Assam, the dominant Bengali-speaking Hindus here are in favour of the bill (and by virtue the Bharatiya Janata Party) since a majority risk exclusion from the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to identify illegal migration post 24 March, 1971. The NRC, which is in the process of being updated under the watch of the Supreme Court of India, is expected to be completed by 31 July this year.

What are the real issues confronting the Indian electorate in 2019? Is it national security that needs many more chowkidars? Or is it the economy that needs a Dr Fixit? Many also argue that 2019 is when Indian democracy will undergo its most defining stress test. There are others, however, who think there is a ‘New majoritarian India’ that is just wanting to burst forward and finally shed all the old Nehruvian skin of dynasty and socialist economic planning residue. But if you are following developments from the bottom up of the news heap rather than top down from headlines beaming out of television channels, a very different picture seems to be emerging.

As the world’s biggest festival of democracy unravels, India in 2019 is increasingly smelling and tasting like the political flavours of 1999. In that year, the BJP won 182 seats and its regional allies brought in another 88 seats for the National Democratic Alliance to offer a coalition government under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The Congress won 114 seats, its allies 21. Back then, riding on the Kargil war, the Bharatiya Janata Party had made national security its election plank, but failed to improve its seat tally from the previous election. The sanctions following the 1998 Pokhran test and the 1997 Asian financial crisis had left the Indian economy badly bruised, unemployment and inflation had spiked and government coffers were drying up faster than expected. Still, Vajpayee returned to power and ruled a full five-year term, largely because he yielded much of the political space to regional allies.

Cut to 2019, regional parties and a clutch of smaller formations are not only back with a bang but fully aware that they will decide the fate of the next government. The whole (national party) will be less than the sum of its parts (regional groupings). And as India looks more federal than ever, verdict 2019 will definitely be about how the tail will wag the dog.

“Every significant case has an unwritten legend and indelible lesson. This appeal is no exception, whatever its formal result. The message, as we will see at the end of the decision, relates to the pervasive philosophy of democratic elections which Sir Winston Churchill vivified in matchless words:

At the bottom of all tributes paid to democracy is the little man, walking into a little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper-no amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly diminish the overwhelming importance of the point.

If we may add, the little, large Indian shall not be hijacked from the course of free and fair elections by mob muscle methods, or subtle perversion of discretion by men dressed in little, brief authority. For be you ever so high, the law is above you.”