Speaker Dipendra Singh Shekawat could not brake the “jinx” attached to the post as he lost the Sri Madhopur Assembly segment to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Jaber Singh Kharra by 7,902 votes.
None of the former speakers has been able to win Assembly elections in the state after completing their tenure in that post. It has proved true in his case as well.
The voters have been very uncharitable to speakers. Take the case of Sumitra Singh, who was the speaker during the last BJP government.
Sumitra Singh, who won for an unprecedented nine out of 12 terms from Jhunjhunu, seven times in a row for the Congress, was later forced to leave the party after the Congress denied her ticket. She won the 1998 election as an Independent before joining the BJP and scripted history in 2003 by becoming the first woman speaker of the Rajasthan Assembly.
Sumita Singh, who contested as a BJP candidate in the 2008 Assembly election from Mandawa ended up fourth with only 13,462 votes in her favour. She was the Speaker of Assembly from 2003 to 2008. But she was defeated in the last Assembly elections.
Similarly, a BJP veteran and heavyweight, Hari Shankar Bhabhra also suffered massive defeat at Ratangarh constituency in Churu district.
A three-time MLA from Ratnagarh, Bhabhra was defeated in 1998 Assembly polls from Ratangarh by Jai Dev Indoria of the Congress.