Polling in Rajasthan begins tomorrow; 25 Muslim candidates in fray

Zee Media Bureau

Jaipur: Over 42.9 million voters will decide the fate of 320 candidates, including Congress leader Sachin Pilot, when voting for 20 Lok Sabha constituencies will be held on Thursday.

The constituencies which will go to polls are Jaipur, Jaipur rural, Sikar, Jhunjhunu, Churu, Bikaner, Nagaur, Jodhpur, Barmer, Jalore, Udaipur, Chittorgarh, Si Ganganagar, Bhilwara, Ajmer, Rajsamand, Pali, Kota, Jhalawar and Banswara.

Among the main contenders are Sachin Pilot, C.P. Joshi, Girja Vyas, Chandresh Kumari and Jitendra Singh of the Congress.

Also in the fray are Sanwar Lal Jat, a minister in the Vasundhara Raje government, Harish Meena, former director general of police, and Olympic silver-medalist shooter Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore of the Bharatiaya Janata Party.

The entry of former BJP leader Jaswant Singh from Barmer and former Congress leader Buta Singh from Jalore have made the contest interesting.

Rajasthan, which has seen a Muslim MP only twice since 1952, will witness as many as 25 such aspirants trying their luck in the two-phase elections starting tomorrow though Congress has nominated just one candidate from the community and BJP none.

In the past 23 years, no Muslim MP has been elected from Rajasthan, which has over 11.4 percent minority population, mostly Muslims, according to 2011 census.

In the past 34 years, BJP has not given Lok Sabha ticket to any Muslim candidate. Congress tried 19 Muslim candidates.

Congress has fielded one candidate -- former cricketer Mohammed Azharuddin from Tonk-Swaimadhopur seat, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) five nominees, Samajwadi Party two and AAP one. BJP has not fielded any Muslim candidate in the state.

Interestingly, 11 out of 25 Lok Sabha constituencies has Muslim population from 11 to 17 per cent, especially in Barmer, Nagaur, Bharatpur, Kota, Sikar, Jodhpur, Churu, Sawaimadhopur, Ajmer, and Alwar.

However, the Election Commission data does not mention any separate figures for Muslims.

National Secretary of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Mohammed Saleem Engineer says as per the Muslim population of 11 per cent, at least three persons should be given Lok Sabha tickets by both Congress and BJP.

With PTI/IANS inputs