Vasundhara Raje has a new contender against her in her home constituency Jhalrapatan of Jhalawar district. Mukul Chaudhury, wife of Pankaj Chaudhury, an IPS officer of 2009 batch Rajasthan-cadre is all set to contest election against the current CM in her constituency. On being asked why she has chosen Jhalrapatan to contest the election, she said, “It is my birthplace and now I want to make it my workplace.” She further added that she wants to fight the ‘injustices’ of the incumbent BJP in a democratic way. The PTI quoted her as saying, “The entire state is suffering under the rule of the chief minister. Crime rate and corruption are on the rise and I have been working against these issues. My motivation to contest the election is corruption, misrule and miseries of people.”
She further stated, “My husband fights against crime and corruption. I too shall do the same, but in a different way. People in the chief minister’s own constituency are unsatisfied with her. There is no development works and people are still lacking basic amenities”. Alleging the government of harassing police officers, she said, “Honest officers are being exploited and my husband has faced the same. He has faced charge sheets and frequent transfers for his honest work.”
Mr. Pankaj Chaudhury who is currently serving as the superintendent of police of state crime records bureau (SCRB) in Jaipur had a face-off with BJP in 2014, when he was an SP in the district of Boondi. In a riot situation, despite the orders from his seniors, he had refused to bail 11 leaders of VHP and Bajrang Dal. Since then he has had to face 7 charge sheets in which, he is accused of misbehavior on duty. On the decision of her wife contesting the election, he said, “It is her individual decision. She can do whatever she wants.”
Mukul Chaudhury hails from a political family. Her mother Shashi Dutta was law minister in the government of Bhairo Singh Shekhawat in the year 1993. In 2008, she had contested the assembly election on a ticket of BSP from Hindon in Karauli district.
Jhalrapatan has remained loyal to Raje for more than a decade. In 2003 assembly elections, she had defeated Congress’ Meenakshi Chandrawat from a big margin of 60,000 votes. The Jhalarapatan constituency has quite a mixed population of Muslims, Dalits, Rajputs, OBCs including Dhakars, Patidars, Dangis and Sondhiya Rajputs, and Gujjars, among others. While Muslims and Dalits are considered the traditional voters of the Congress, Rajputs, Dhakars, Sondhiya Rajputs, Gurjars, Patidars and Dangis have been BJP’s vote bank. It will be interesting to see whether Mukul Choudhury can manage to beat Raje’s record.