Rajasthan Congress leaders Jyoti Mirdha, Sawai Singh Choudhary join BJP

Two days before the BJP’s CEC meets to decide on the strategies and candidates for the upcoming polls, two former Congress MPs from Rajasthan — Jyoti Mirdha and Sawai Singh Chowdhury — joined the party on Monday.

Mirdha is a former MP from Nagaur while Choudhary is a retired IPS officer. On Monday, they joined the BJP at the party headquarters in the presence of general secretary in-charge of Rajasthan Arun Singh and state president CP Joshi. “The joining of Jyoti Mirdha and Sawai Singh Choudhary has further strengthened the BJP family,” said Singh.

Mirdha, the granddaughter of prominent Jat leader Nathu Ram Mirdha, lost the 2019 Lok Sabha election to Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) leader Hanuman Beniwal. She said that there were no longer opportunities in the Congress. Beniwal fought the 2019 Lok Sabha elections as part of the NDA, but has since left the Alliance. Mirdha had also lost the 2014 Lok Sabha elections to BJP’s CR Choudhary.

“We joined politics to play a role in nation-building, but in the Congress, there are fewer opportunities every passing day. Our own workers are being ignored. Many people were feeling suffocated and so they have left the Congress family to join the BJP,” she said.

It is likely that Mirdha fights the 2024 Lok Sabha elections on a BJP ticket from Nagaur. The party has been keen to reach out to the Jat vote bank.

Retired bureaucrat Chaudhary had contested the 2018 assembly elections from the Khinvsar seat on a Congress ticket.