The Queen, a gangster and two rebels in Rajasthan

Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
Jaipur/Nagaur/Dausa, December 3

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When Rajasthan Police killed gangster Anandpal Singh last June, Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje had no idea his ghost would return to haunt her.

Resentment over the alleged fake encounter of Singh, a Ravana Rajput, has peaked this election season with the slain gangster’s family openly campaigning against the ruling BJP and in favour of the Congress.

“Kamal ka phool, hamaari bhool” is the slogan Singh’s daughter Yogita is heard chanting at all poll rallies which she and her mother Nirmala Kanwar routinely attend these days to back the Congress. The majority of demographically dominant Rajputs in Rajasthan are livid at Raje over the killing of Singh, hailed by villagers across the Nagaur belt as a “good gangster”.

“He never troubled the poor. Members of his gang respected women so much they would offer their own seats to women in roadways buses. Anandpal Singh routinely gave money to Rajput families in villages to wed their daughters. He was unfairly eliminated,” says Surender Singh Chouhan of Dausa, who feels the Rajput anger against Raje is justified.

Anandpal’s killing, coupled with the release of film “Padmaavat” last year, fuelled Rajput angst against the ruling dispensation with the local Rajput Karni Sena aggressively posturing against the BJP in elections.

“The Karni Sena was not in favour of the crimes Anandpal Singh had committed. But we are against his fake encounter. He deserved to face the justice system like any other citizen. He did not deserve to be killed,” says Madho Singh, a Karni Sena office-bearer in Dausa. Rajput-backed outfit Janata Sena has this time fielded independent candidates in many areas like Udaipur where they will harm BJP prospects.

Besides this, the Raje Government is also facing trouble from two formidable former colleagues — former Education Minister and six-term MLA Ghanshyam Tiwari and former BJP lawmaker and sitting Independent MLA from Nagaur’s Khinvsar Hanuman Beniwal.

Tiwari, a senior leader who presided over the first Rajasthan BJP convention in Sikar, fell out with Raje over the years, leaving BJP recently. His newly floated Bharat Vahini Party has fielded candidates in 64 seats. Himself a sitting MLA from Jaipur’s Sanganer, Tiwari is challenging city Mayor Ashok Lahoti, who is BJP’s official nominee from this segment.

“Ghanshyam Tiwari is among the fathers of BJP in Rajasthan. He won Sanganer seat with 67 per cent votes in 2013. He will influence government formation,” says Bharat Sharma, a BVP worker.

To add to BJP’s woes, Tiwari’s BVP is contesting in alliance with another new outfit – the Hanuman Beniwal-led Rashtriya Loktantrik Party, which is fighting on 57 seats. Beniwal, a strong Jat leader, is drawing huge crowds to his rallies.

Caste equations stacked against it – Rajputs are angry, Jats confused and upper castes disenchanted over the Union Government’s recent reversal of SC’s order diluting the Prevention of Corruption against SCs and STs Act — the BJP is increasingly banking on PM Narendra Modi’s appeal to get home on December 7. The latest saffron poll slogan in Rajasthan explains it all: “Rajasthan ki paramparaa… Modi sang Vasundhara”.