Rajasthan Election 2023: For the 2023 Rajasthan Legislative Assembly elections, the Congress has released five candidate lists. Among these lists, 23 out of the total 30 incumbent ministers, including the Chief Minister, have been declared as candidates.
Out of the total 30, one minister, Rajendra Gudha, was dismissed some time ago. Among the remaining six ministers, one, Subhash Garg, is from the National Lok Dal party, while the names of the other five ministers have not yet been included in the list of candidates.
These five ministers are PHED Minister Dr. Mahesh Joshi, UDH Minister Shanti Dhariwal, Agriculture Minister Lalchand Kataria, Forest Minister Hemaram Choudhary, and Science and Technology Minister Zahida Khan.
There is significant opposition to the ticket allocation for three ministers who were excluded from the list of announced candidates. Dr. Mahesh Joshi and Shanti Dhariwal have faced ongoing controversy regarding their candidacies, but consensus has not been reached on their names.
These two leaders are the ones who rebelled against the Congress High Command on September 25, 2022. At that time, they were joined by RTDC (Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation) Chairman Dharmendra Rathore. The party's High Command had issued a notice of indiscipline against all three leaders.
Dr. Joshi, Dhariwal, and Rathore have submitted their nominations, but the party has not yet finalized their candidatures. In the case of Minister Jahida Khan, there have been protests against her candidature for several days, spanning from Bharatpur and Jaipur to Delhi.
Given the strong opposition, her name has not received consensus approval either.
Hemaram Choudhary, the Minister of Environment and Forests, recently expressed his reluctance to contest in the upcoming elections by writing a letter to the party's High Command.
He stated that he has served as a legislator and minister for six terms and has contributed significantly to public service through politics. Now, he believes it's time to give another leader the opportunity instead of him.
In the previous elections, Hemaram Choudhary also declined to run for elections, but the party still nominated him as a candidate.
This time around, after refusing to contest publicly, he has written a letter to the party's High Command urging them to provide the chance to another candidate.
Agriculture Minister Lalchand Kataria also appears to be uninterested in contesting the elections. It is reported that his private secretary informed the media that neither Lalchand Kataria nor any member of his family wants to run for elections this time.
However, Lalchand Kataria himself has not confirmed this information. Earlier, there were reports that Kataria was interested in contesting from the Amer constituency.
As of now, the Congress party has not announced the name of any candidate for the Jhotwara legislative assembly seat.