It's two sporting icons in showdown between Cong, BJP in Jaipur Rural

In the towns and villages surrounding Jaipur, prosperity is measured by how close you are to the various national and state highways, which snake out of Rajasthan’s beautiful capital city. If you are following a politician’s convoy on the campaign trail, you will leave the four or six-laned smooth, tarred roads and an hour or so later, you will still find good village roads, where the latest SUVs, tractors and herds of goats and buffaloes jostle with each other, pucca houses, phone network and power connection.

Two hours in, however, and all the promises which governments make to the voters disappear. No rural roads, no pucca houses, no toilets, and patchy phone connections. These settlements in the deep interior of Jaipur Rural are mired in extreme poverty, surrounded by dry, arid shrub-land, and the only way to get to them is by dirt track and dry strem-beds. Surprising, given that they are not that far from one of India’s major metropolitan areas.

Jaipur Rural is in national spotlight because of the achievements of its two main contenders for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, both national icons. The BJP’s candidate is incumbent Member of Parliament and Minister of State for Information and Technology, and Sports and Youth Affairs Rajyavardhan Rathore, a decorated Army officer, an Olympics silver medal winner, and three-time Commonwealth Games gold medal winner in double-trap shooting.

The Congress candidate, Krishna Poonia, is a Commonwealth Games gold medallist, and a two-time Asian Games bronze medal winner in discus. She is a member of the Raja­sthan Legislative Assembly from Sadulpur in northern Rajasthan. Both Poonia and Rathore have been awarded the Padma Shri.

Jaipur Rural constituency was created in 2008 as part of the delimitation of Parliamentary constituencies and comprises eight Assembly constituencies.

On a hot Sunday, Rathore is putting in quick campaign stops. He has no big rallies planned and instead aims to cover around 18 chaupal and sabha meetings and two roadshows. “I have been getting three hours of sleep daily the past one month,” he tells Business Standard.

Rathore is considered a strong candidate and the local people say he does make regular visits to the constituency and has utilised his MPLAD funds. Even then, in his interactions with voters, he does not mention his work even once. The central theme of the BJP’s poll strategy is clearly Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Whether you are a strong BJP candidate or a weak one, you seek votes in Modi’s name.

Rathore has a high-tech campaign strategy, with a team of about 20 people. The younger people in his team are lugging around phones and cameras just to film and photograph him and put every content on social media. He even stops midway to do a facebook live session.

His convoy is also accompanied by two Mahindra pick-up trucks packed to the rafters with box speakers. They are blaring out speeches by Modi and songs praising his work. Wherever Rathore makes a campaign stop, the local organisers don’t even have to provide the audio equipment. His team is carrying microphones, which are connected to the audio pick-up trucks and his short speeches boom through them. In these parched villages, one point Rathore repeats again and again is that Modi has promised to deliver tapped water to every household.

“This is an issue that troubles them and no one has bothered about this. My sense is that the way Modi took on building of toilets, he may take this up, though it is essentially a state subject,” he says.

The sense from the locals is that benefits of central government schemes such as rural houses and toilets have reached them. However, some of the themes being communicated by the Opposition, including of unemployment, also resonate with the people.  

“My son has done his graduation and is applying for jobs everywhere, be it the Army, the police, teachers, everything. We have been told there are vacancies, but he has not been able to find a job for a year,” said 65-year old Phulchand Vaishnav, who runs a provision store in Sambhar town.

Vaishnav says he will vote for the BJP because of Modi and adds the block- and panchayat-level BJP leaders in the region have done good work.

Caste and religion play an important part here. Local journalists, BJP and Congress workers in the constituency say the biggest voting bloc is the Jats, with about 350,000 votes, scheduled castes with 300,000 votes, Rajputs and Gujjars around 100,000 votes each, and Muslims and Meenas a little under 100,000 votes each.

It is the Jat votebank which the Congress is trying to capture with Poonia, who is said to not have the same grassroots presence or the recall value among Jaipur Rural voters, but nevertheless, is quite popular.

Poonia spoke to Business Standard after a massive rally in Kotputli town headlined by Congress President Rahul Gandhi, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot. At the rally, attended by over 60,000 people, Gandhi promised to take Modi to task for helping crony capitalists, bring in the NYAY minimum income guarantee scheme, filling all the vacant government jobs and introducing a separate budget for farmers.

“The biggest problems here are unemployment and rural distress. I have promised that being a farmer’s daughter I will ensure that they don’t face any such problems. My doors are open for all my constituents,” Poonia says, surrounded by supporters who keep up the “Krishna Poonia zindabad” chants.

When pointed that she many not have the same popularity or support as Rathore, she says, “When I came to Jaipur after winning the Commonwealth medal, I was given a lot of support. I am sure I will be given the same support in these elections.”