In Rajasthan fight, Vasundhara Raje works hard for legacy and relevance

Former chief minister Vasundhara Raje is campaigning extensively for the Lok Sabha elections after losing power last year.

“Modi, Modi”,” chant BJP supporters sitting right of the stage. The speaker on the podium, Vasundhara Raje, is about to begin her speech, but stops. “Ho gaya?” she asks, staring down at the supporters, smirking. “Aap log pehle thak jaao, phir bolna shuru karungi main.” The supporters and the BJP functionaries laugh nervously. “Chalo bolo. Koi nahi,” she says. The chants of “Modi Modi” resume again. She allows it for about half a minute, then suddenly says: “Ho gaya bas ab. Chup.”

If looks could kill, those BJP supporters would have been reduced to ashes. Raje, a two-term Chief Minister of Rajasthan and five-time Member of Parliament, isn’t contesting the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. But that doesn’t mean this isn’t a personal battle for her. She isn’t fighting for votes. According to her aides and political opponents, she is fighting for something she regards as more important: Her relevance and legacy.

Raje is one of the BJP’s star campaigners in Rajasthan, and unarguably its biggest face in the state. If you ask the voters, they seem to have taken offence at her political missteps.

Narpat Singh, a farmer attending the BJP rally in Samdari, near the textile town of Balotra in Barmer district, says Rajputs in parts of Western Rajasthan did not vote for her in the 2018 state elections because of how she is perceived to have treated former union minister Jaswant Singh, who is popular in Barmer.

People in Jodhpur say Rajputs were also angered after the 2017 encounter killing of Anandpal Singh, a gangster who had cultivated a Robin Hood image among many Rajputs.

Accused of arrogance

Over the years, Raje has also alienated many BJP and RSS workers. “You may have your animosity towards the cadre handed to you by the central leadership. But the cadre has its uses, especially during campaigning. Because of her arrogance and in a bid to maintain absolute control over the party in Rajasthan, she has driven a wedge through the party and turned many leaders against her,” says a BJP campaign manager, who handles a number of constituencies in western Rajasthan.

“She thought Jaswant Singh would threaten her position as the tallest BJP leader in Rajasthan. She was successful in sidelining him, but also lost his many supporters in the process,” says the BJP leader.

Raje is putting in a punishing schedule. Provided a helicopter as a star campaigner for her party, she is travelling the length and breadth of India’s largest state and headlining three-four rallies in a day. It's said she did not want to hold so many rallies, but has been told to by the national leadership.

Her arch-rival in the Congress, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Ghelot, is camped mostly in Jodhpur constituency for his son and party candidate Vaibhav Ghelot. Raje too wanted to spend most of her time in and around Jhalawar-Baran constituency, where her son and incumbent MP, Dushyant Singh, is fighting his fourth election.

Jodhpur and Barmer border each other and go to polls on April 29. The BJP had called in its big guns to campaign in the two places: Raje, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah, Minister of State for External Affairs General (retd.) VK Singh, and Bollywood actor Sunny Deol.

The Congress depends more on its state leadership in Rajasthan. Ashok Ghelot remains likeable across castes and is popular. A complaint against him, however, is that he has still not made good on the Congress' promise of farm loan waivers during the campaigning of state elections last year.

Rebuilding bridges she burnt

It is well known that there is no love lost between Raje and Modi and Shah. "They want to sideline her, yes. But if they do, the BJP in Rajasthan will be finished. She won't allow it and is rebuilding some of bridges she burnt with sections of voters in the state," said the BJP leader. 

In the Samdari rally, a crowd of around 800 people listen to a string of local BJP leaders, Hindu monks, and the party’s Barmer candidate Kailash Chaudhary speak along the same lines. Their speeches revolve around the Modi government's achievements, on how he has taught Pakistan a lesson, on how all the corrupt opposition leaders have bandied together, and how every vote for BJP will be a vote against terrorists and anti-nationals. The party’s template for national elections was being followed. 

Raje was supposed to come by 3 pm. Her chopper lands at 5 PM. By this time the crowd has swelled to about 1,200. It's not necessarily a good thing. "There was a time we had to deal with crowds of around 50,000 people in her rallies in the past. Now it isn't even 1,500," said a Rajasthan Police officer, for whom the bored crowd wasn't the problem. The problem in this hot April afternoon were the over-enthusiastic BJP workers who were trying to get a seat on the stage among senior district leaders, by threatening and flaunting their connections. 

The crowd was bored only till the time Raje wasn't there. Once she arrived, it was clear she remains hugely popular. The rural women, especially, cheer the loudest. When she took the dais, she broke the template.

Not a word on the Gandhi family or on nationalism or terrorism. Most significantly, not a word on Modi.

Raje wanted people to remember her record. She spoke of all the work she did in her last term and all that she would have done if she was given another term. She spoke about how the Ghelot government had undone her good work. And she claimed that Ghelot had stopped the benefits of Bhamashah Yojana, under which financial and non-financial benefits are transferred directly to women's bank accounts.

Not just about Modi

Raje may be stumping for a Lok Sabha candidate, but the speech is all about her achievements, not Modi's. She wants the voters of Rajasthan to remember her work and her achievements.

To keep the supporters happy, she allowed them to chant Modi's name every 5-7 minutes. But when she wants them to stop, they do. Some do chant 'Vasundhara Raje Zindabad', but they are few and far between.

Her demeanor is an easy one and it is clear she still knows how to connect with the voters

What is missing however, is any acceptance of her missteps, whether it is alienating Rajputs (in a constituency where they are a major votebank), her own party workers, or farm distress.

Her aides say however, that in private meetings with community leaders, rural politicians, and party functionaries, she has been accommodating and leaves aside her legendary arrogance. 

"She has royal blood, she is a Maharani, she is an ex-CM, all the things which make her very egotistical. In public she will never admit it, but in private meetings she has started to show a level of contrition whenever needed," said the BJP leader quoted above. 

What of the rumours in power circles that in spite of less than cordial relations between Modi, Shah and regional leaders like Raje and Shivraj Singh Chauhan, the latter two could come to Delhi through the Rajya Sabha route and be given plum cabinet posts? 

"Even if that is offered, she may not go. She is aiming for another term as CM. Rajasthan is her karmabhoomi. She would rather lead it again," the person said.