TAARE ZAMEEN PAR

Team BJP has the zing thing:

The ruling party BJP has released its list of star campaigners for the forthcoming byelections in two parliamentary and one assembly seats namely Alwar, Ajmer and Mandalgarh. 

The star campaigners include Prime Minister Narendra Modi, National president BJP Amit Shah, Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari and Piyush Goyal. Four union ministers from Rajasthan Arjun Meghwal, PP Choudhry, CR Choudhary and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat have also been included. As many as 13 ministers of the Raje cabinet would be campaigning for the party.

Prominent names from the party organisation at national and state level have been included in the list. National general secretary Ramlal; national general secretary V Satish; national general secretary Bhupendra Yadav; organisation secretary Chandrashekshar; state in-charge Avinash Rai Khanna; and state BJP chief Ashok Parnami would also be campaigning for the party candidates. As would be two MPs from Rajasthan including Raje’s son Dushyant Singh and Arjun Meena.

Also included among the star campaigners is Vasundhara Raje’s daughter-in-law Niharika Raje who hails from the Gurjar community that constitutes a sizeable chunk of the Ajmer population. This however is not the first time that Niharika is being used to campaign for the BJP. She had extensively campaigned in the Gujar dominated areas of Tonk and Sawai Madhopur too.    

A close look at the list tells how well star power and caste equation has been clubbed to tap the major castes in the three constituencies. It also gives also an insight into how vital these polls are for the BJP. The list One can easily say it is not just a list of star campaigners; it is an entire galaxy.

The striking omissions in the long list of BJP star campaigners are union minister Rajyavardhan Rathore and senior leader Om Mathur. Mathur had played a key role in UP assembly polls while Rathore’s constituency is adjacent to Alwar. Also missing is minister Vasudev Devnani, himself an MLA from Ajmer whereas the other minister from Ajmer, Anita Bhadel is included.

BUT... NO RAH-RAH RAHUL:

Aday after filing nomination papers, the Congress has declared list of star campaigners who would tour and address gatherings to garner support for its candidates in Ajmer, Alwar parliamentary and Mandalgarh bypolls slated on January 29.

Senior party leaders including former chief minister Ashok Gehlot; Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee chief Sachin Pilot; AICC general secretaries- CP Joshi, Mohan Prakash, Avinash Pandey, leader of Opposition Rameshwer Dudi are among the top campaigners on whose popularity the party plans to register victory.

The name of AICC president Rahul Gandhi is missing from the list as despite Gandhi scion’s image makeover and growing popularity in theGujarat assembly election, the party does not want to use him in the bypolls.

“They have made Modi as star campaigner, this is their strategy. But, we are confident of winning all seats of bypolls easily  and that’s why Rahul ji is name has not been clubbed in the list,” said a senior Congress leader, when asked about the list. Since 2013 assembly general election, Rajasthan has witnessed bypolls twice and Gandhi did not campaign in either of them.

“Gandhi is our top leader, he would campaign in general assembly election. This is only bypoll,” argued another leader. The list approved by the AICC general secretary and Rajasthan in-charge Avinash Pandey has many other leaders who held topmost organisational posts in past or currently occupying important offices. While making list, the party kept in mind castes and several senior leaders of party from other regions have been authorised as campaigners.

Among the prominent leaders who are included in the list are: AICC secretaries- Vivek Bansal, Nizamuddin Mohammad Qazi, Devendra Singh Yadav, Tarun Kumar, Harish Choudhary, Zuber Khan, former RPCC presidents-Girija Vyas, Narayan Singh, BD Kalla, Chandrabhan and former ministers- Namonarayan Meena, Jitendra Singh, Mahadeo Singh Khandela, Lal Chand Kataria, Shanti Dhariwal and Pramod Jain Bhaya.

Candidates... not so Tweet!:

At a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and AICC president Rahul Gandhi are setting social media alight to connect with youth and to expand their reach at large, their candidates who are in poll fray from Ajmer, Alwar, and Mandalgarh are shying away to connect with people on the micro blogging site- Twitter. Though RaGa’s makeover from a recluse to a outspoken person is a recent one, it sent out a loud message- social media presence is a part of a bigger strategy to win the political battle.

Congress’ Raghu Sharma and Karn Singh Yadav, candidates from Ajmer and Alwar respectively have just got active on Twitter to connect with the masses who will ultimately call the shots during polls slated on January 29.

Numbers speak for themselves and here they are less than satisfactory. For stance, Sharma has a following of 824 users while Yadav has 52 followers on Twitter. Similarly, their tweets and retweets are negligible in number. Both have jointly tweeted 160 times so far, out of which most tweets were made during last fortnight when their names as probables for the candidature were taking rounds.

Ironically, the constituencies they are contesting from have over 33 lakh  voters and the number of their followers is not even 10%. Surprisingly, BJP’s Ramswaroop Lamba, Jaswant Singh Yadav, the candidates from Ajmer and Alwar respectably have no twitter handle.

While Congress candidate from Mandalgarh, Vivek Dhakar has 57 followers and he just activated his account a couple of days back. His rival from BJP, Shakti Singh Hada is absent from Twitter.

However, these leaders are popular on Facebook, another social media site. They have pages which are followed by people in thousands.Jaswant Yadav has 9700 followers while Karn Singh Yadav is followed by 12,349. Pages of Raghu Sharma, Ramswaroop Lamba, Vivek Dhakar are liked and followed by users in hundreds.