5-state elections: Rajasthan poll today, 199 seats up for grabs
Animesh Singh
New Delhi, November 24
Rajasthan is all set to go to the polls tomorrow to elect a new Assembly. Voting will be held on 199 seats. The Congress will seek to buck the trend and hope to win its second successive election in a state which has been following a revolving door policy for the past two decades.
The total number of voters in Rajasthan are 5.26 crore out of which 2.51 crore are women and 2.73 crore are men.
There are 200 seats in the Rajasthan Assembly. However, polling will be held on 199 of those as Congress candidate in Karanpur constituency, Gurmeet Singh Koonar, passed away on November 15. So, polling for that seat has been postponed.
Voting will be held from 7 am to 6 pm. A total of 51,507 polling stations have been set up in the Assembly constituencies, state election commission officials said.
Some of the key candidates whose fate will be sealed tomorrow are Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot from Sardarpura, BJP leader and former two-time Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje from Jhalrapatan, Speaker in the outgoing Assembly and Congress leader CP Joshi from Nathdwara, Congress leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot from Tonk, erstwhile princess from Jaipur royal family Diya Kumari from Vidyadhar Nagar, Urban Development Minister in Gehlot’s cabinet Shanti Dhariwal from Kota North and former Union Minister as well as former Olympian Rajyavardhan Rathore from Jhotwara among many others.
It will be interesting to see whether it will be Ashok Gehlot’s sops or PM Modi’s Ram Ram! (an oblique reference to the inauguration of the Ram temple in January next year by him in his rallies there) that work once the results are declared on December 3.
