The ageing shoulders of two 70-year-olds will share the herculean burden of rebuilding the trust for BJP in Jat and Dalit communities in Rajasthan. Arjun Ram Meghwal from Bikaner and Bhagirath Choudhary from Ajmer star among a constellation of Modi 3.0 ministers sworn into constitutional duties in a glittering ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhawan on Sunday. They are among the four ministerial picks of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Rajasthan, where the party saw its base in the two dominant communities erode in the recently held general elections. Bhupendra Yadav from Alwar and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat from Jodhpur complete the quartet of ministers from Rajasthan in the newly-elected government. Shekhawat and Yadav have been inducted as Cabinet ministers, while Meghwal and Choudhary will get Minister of State (MoS) ranks after the portfolios are distributed.
The BJP dropped its face in the Parliament, Om Birla, who administered the Lok Sabha as its Speaker in the previous government. Birla, who won Kota constituency for the third straight term, was conspicuously missing from the list of invitees for swearing-in on Sunday. The other minister to bow out of the NDA in its third stint is Kailash Choudhary. Choudhary helmed the portfolio of Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare in the previous NDA government. He lost the elections from Barmer constituency to the Congress candidate Ummeda Ram Beniwal.
Meghwal, 70, has been elected as a member of the Parliament from Bikaner constituency for the fourth straight term.
In 2014, Meghwal was elevated to the post of BJP chief whip in the Lok Sabha. In his third outing as a parliamentarian, he served as the MoS, Parliamentary Affairs. As a Dalit representative, he has had a loyal following that has seen him through four consecutive elections. He is truly a people’s man and remarkably so, having served as a career bureaucrat. Babus are infamous for being far removed from people and their grievances. Not Meghwal. At his Jaipur residence, a khat (cot) is always laid out in the front for visitors to come over and have a chat. His family, including his sons, can be approached without any hesitation for a 'chai pe charcha'.
A two-time MP, Choudhary is a mirror image of Meghwal. His turbaned head stands out as the visibly colourful part of his personality, which is otherwise seeped in a characteristic rustic charm laced with humility. On his debut in the Modi Cabinet, Choudhary, a Jat leader, is quick to admit that they failed to counter the Opposition propaganda of stripping the Dalits of reservation benefits. “Jhooth teji se failta hai, satya deri se ujagar hoti hai (Lies spread like wildfire, truth takes time to emerge),” he said, reflecting upon his ‘surprise inclusion’ in the Modi Cabinet. He, however, speaks confidently of truth prevailing over time hinting that the Congress has sabotaged itself by lying about handing out doles to women and youth.
For both Meghwal and Choudhary, the task is cut out. The party is betting on them big time to alleviate the pain Jats and Dalits have inflicted on it in the recently concluded elections. The Congress won the whole of Dalit-dominated eastern belt of Rajasthan leaving the BJP and Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma licking their wounds after the humiliating rout. Their perception was so spectacularly bad among the voters in this belt that Sharma couldn’t save the parliamentary seats in the Bharatpur division, his home town, despite Brand Modi and the heft of the chief minister’s office.
The BJP-led NDA has grudgingly lost 6 per cent votes among the Scheduled Castes in the elections. This national swing in the vote led it to a crippling defeat in strongholds such as Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. By nominating Meghwal as a MoS again, the party is desperately trying to anchor the Dalit ship that has run into a political storm in Rajasthan.
If Dalits took out the party from the eastern front, the Jats took the wind out of BJP’s sails in the central and western Rajasthan. The party, having lost most of its Jat stalwarts in the elections and having surrendered the prized Shekhawati belt to the Congress and allies, was left with no choice but to go with Choudhary. The Jat leader from Ajmer may come across as a novice, but he knows how to bounce back. He held onto his seat at a time when the community overwhelmingly sided with the Opposition and pulled the rug from under the feet of the ruling BJP government in state. His feat is made sweeter by the convincing win he notched up after losing the Assembly elections in 2023 from Kishangarh seat.
Bhupender Yadav and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat made their way back into the NDA government from Rajasthan. The party retained the two racehorses from its stable alongside Meghwal. Yadav, who has the blessings of Sangh with him, has been a staple in all Modi governments. The only change in his latest stint in the Parliament is that he will sit in the Lok Sabha hereon. A member of the Rajya Sabha since 2012, Yadav, a Supreme Court advocate by profession, contested the Alwar seat for the first time. He defeated the Congress candidate to win his first elections by a comfortable margin in the swing state adjoining Haryana where the party is failing despite a change of guard at the top. Yadav has served as a minister of Labour and Employment and Environment in the outgoing Cabinet. As national general secretary of the BJP he is credited with steering the BJP ship to victory in Odisha and Gujarat.
Former Cabinet minister of Jal Shakti, and MP from Jodhpur, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, is the fourth and the final name from the BJP to have found a berth in the NDA government. Hailing from the Rajput community, Shekhawat has risen in stature and trust within the state unit overshadowing BJP bigwigs such as Vasundhara Raje in the hierarchy. His hold on the Jodhpur division has earned him the stature of a giant slayer. He has wrested the control of Jodhpur, the playground of former chief minister Ashok Gehlot, thrice in a row now. He made his debut in the Parliament by defeating Chandresh Kumari, an erstwhile royal, and the sitting MP. In 2019, he repeated his feat again by taking Vaibhav Gehlot to the cleaners. A tech-savvy minister, his nomination is a balm on the frayed nerves of the Rajputs who were miffed by the party condoning the condescending remarks by Union minister Parshottam Rupala, who hails from the neighbouring state.
Amid these flag-bearers, Birla is the only biggie from the state who has not made it to the Cabinet. He has never lost an election since 2003 when he first contested and won as a legislator from Kota South by defeating Gehlot loyalist and Congress veteran Shanti Dhariwal. BJP office-bearers said Birla was not axed for non-performance. “There is little elbow room now with the allies stepping in with bigger numbers,” a senior member of the party said. The party office-bearer said it was a positive sign that Rajasthan still managed to get 4 ministerial berths in the government with just 14 seats of the 25 in the state. BJP had won 24 seats in Rajasthan in the 2019 general elections.