BJP's new Raj Prez unlikely to be from Raje's camp

A week after Rajasthan BJP president Madan Lal saini passed away, the party's state unit is waiting for a new chief to be supposedly be backed by the RSS.

The search for the new party chief for Rajasthan began last month, after the former president Madan Lal Saini's health deteriorated.

The names of the leaders that are doing rounds for the vacant post of BJP chief are of Satish Poonia, the MLA from Amber, Vasudev Devnani, MLA from Amber and former education minister and Arun Chatturvedi, former social justice minister.

Coincidentally, all three leaders are from the state cadre and are actively associated with the RSS.

In addition to these leaders, former union minister Rajyavardhan Rathore, from the central unit of BJP, is also in the frontrunner for the post.

Rathore, a former MoS information and broadcasting, is the MP from Jaipur rural and was dropped from the list of cabinet ministers who took charge last month.

According to political analysts, when it comes to the caste factor, Poonia who held the post of General Secretary of BJP in Rajasthan in the past, is best suited for the post.

Poonia is a Jat leader with a prominent RSS background. In Rajasthan, both Jats as well as the RSS had been sidelined in last one decade by Vasundhara Raje, when it comes to the important positions in state unit.

Unlike 2018, when the party's central leadership wanted Gajendra Singh Shekhawat to be made the new state President but Vasundhara Raje rejected the idea, things will be different this time.

Especially, after BJP leader and MP from Kota, Om Birla, got the Lok Sabha Speaker post and Jodhpur MP Gajendra Singh's elevation as a cabinet minister, it is a clear hint that the next president will have a backing of RSS and will not necessarily be from the Raje's camp.

"This is an opportunity for the BJP to appease both RSS and the Jat community, who have been sidelined during Raje's tenure. Last year, when the central leadership wanted Rajput leader Gajendra Singh Shekhawat to replace the then president Ashok Parnami as Rajasthan chief, it was the Raje who opposed it by saying that Jat community will get upset," a senior BJP leader told DH.