BJP chief JP Nadda and Union Home Minister Amit Shah held night-long discussions in Jaipur about the party’s strategy for the upcoming Rajasthan assembly polls. The meeting began at a Jaipur hotel late on Wednesday evening and continued till 2 am, party sources said.
The party has decided to field Union Ministers and MPs on tough seats, BJP sources said. The meeting follows the BJP’s decision to name three Union ministers and four MPs in its second list of candidates for poll-bound Madhya Pradesh.
Sources in the BJP’s Rajasthan unit said Union Jal Shakti minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat may be fielded in the assembly polls, along with some other MPs.
At the meeting, the party leadership has also decided not a project a Chief Minister face in the state during campaigning, and instead go with a combined leadership approach. The move is an attempt to keep regional leaders’ ambitions and rivalries in check, and reinforce the “party above individual” maxim.
Leaders who could become the Rajasthan chief minister if BJP wins include union ministers Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Rajya Sabha MP Dr Kirodi Lal Meena and Lok Sabha MPs Diya Kumar, Rajyavardhan Rathore, and Sukhveer Singh Jaunpuria.
Vasundhara Raje, 70, a two-term Chief Minister and a member of the Scindia royal family, is unlikely to return, even if she is widely seen as the BJP’s tallest and most influential leader in the state.
