Will Dushyant reclaim the bastion?

For the last thirty years, former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje and her son Dushyant Singh have dominated the Jhalawar-Baran Lok Sabha seat.

The BJP has once again placed its trust in Dushyant Singh, a three-time MP who has been representing the seat since 2004.

This Lok Sabha elections, Singh will be in a direct contest with Congress’ Pramod Sharma.

In the 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress had fielded party stalwart and incumbent state minister Pramod Jain ‘Bhaya’ and his wife Urmila Jain ‘Bhaya’ from Jhalawar-Baran, respectively, both of whom lost to Dushyant.

A hotelier by profession, Dushyant, 45, is banking on the development plank and the images of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Raje to win this time.

He is running from pillar to post to win the seat again.

In his election campaign, Singh reminds his electorate of three things: the work he has done in the last 15 years; Modi’s vision and the BJP manifesto; Raje’s work for the constituency.

Raje had won the Jhalawar-Baran for the first time in 1989 and has represented the constituency as MP four times and has been representing the Jhalawar Assembly constituency after she entered into state politics.

Dushyant, who campaigns 14 hours a day, holds both small and big sabhas. He covers hundreds of kilometres in the car and doesn’t forget to mention the Kota-Jhalawar National Highway, a four-laned, 80-km stretch that was white-topped, as well as the Parwan Dam, which provides for irrigation and drinking water to the villages in Kota, Jhalawar and Baran districts.

The mood is electrifying in Jhalawar even without the presence of any star campaigners in his rallies except for his mother and wife Niharika Raje.

He, however, hasn’t shared the stage with either of these ladies.

While Raje campaigned for four days for her son, wife Niharika prefers door-to-door meetings and interaction with women on her own.