Rajasthan Elections: On Sunday, the Congress released its final list of candidates for the upcoming Rajasthan assembly elections, and to everyone's surprise, the party fielded State Minister Shanti Dhariwal from Kota North constituency.
The seventh and final list has the names of 21 candidates, Congress has declared its candidates on a total of 199 seats, out of a total of 200.
One seat that is left is Bharapur and that is for the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).
CM Ashok Gehlot's close companion Dharmendra Rathore, Chairman of Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation was denied a ticket by the party.
Dharmendra Rathore was aiming for a ticket from the Ajmer North constituency but the Congress bypassed him and fielded Mahendra Singh Ralawata instead.
Last year the party's disciplinary committee issued notices against the three senior state leaders and Dharmendra Rathore and Shanti Dhariwal were among the three.
They had directed the rebels who said no to accept Sachin Pilot as the Chief Minister when the Congress wanted Ashok Gehlot to stand for the party president's post.
Rathore and Dhariwal did not accompany into any Legislature Party meeting that was being held going after the instructions of the party's Central leadership. Rather they both held a parallel meeting of MLAs.
The third leader Mahesh Joshi who was handed out a notice by the party's disciplinary council, has already been denied a ticket for the Assembly elections. At this place, R.R. Tiwari has been fielded from Hawa Mahal.
In the final list, the party has disclosed seven sitting MLAs. They are Parasram Mordia, Jitendra Singh, Lalchand Kataria, Prithviraj, Hemaram Choudhary, Girraj Malinga, and Ramnarain Meena.
In 2018, the Congress gained a victory of 99 seats while the BJP won 73 in the 200-member house. Due to the support of independent and BSP MLAs Ashok Gehlot came to power.
Today, i.e. November 6 is the last date for filing for the Rajasthan Assembly election nominations.
The elections will be held on November 25 and the counting of votes will take place on December 5 along with the other four states.