New Delhi:
The Congress suspended the rebel leader from Rajasthan on Thursday Naresh Meena In the controversy about the party’s candidate for next week Deoli-Uniyara Assembly by-election. The state in-charge of the party Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa issued this order on Thursday.
Naresh Meena wanted to contest this seat but the party decided to field Kastor Chand Meena.
A disgruntled Naresh Meena then announced that he would run as an independent candidate with the support of the Bharat Adivasi Party, sparking what was said to be a split in the community’s vote.
Naresh Meena rebelled against the Congress twice before last year’s assembly elections, even when he was an independent candidate for the Chhabra seat. He polled around 44,000 votes, while Congress’s Karan Rathore lost to BJP’s Pratap Singhvi by less than 7,000.
The Congress pardoned Naresh Meena and reinstated him before the Lok Sabha elections, only for him to start a row for the Dausa seat. He agreed to rise to the occasion.
The Deoli-Uniyara by-election was triggered after Harishchandra Meena, who had won the seat in the 2018 and 2023 assembly elections, was elected to the Lok Sabha in the April-June general elections.
Deoli-Uniyara falls within the Tonk Lok Sabha constituency, which was won by Harish Meena and in which senior Congress leader and former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot seems to have significant influence.
The Deoli-Uniyara seat, created for the 2008 assembly elections, has been carried mostly by the Congress, with Ram Narayan Meena winning the first election, followed five years later by Rajendra Gujjar of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Harish Meena won this seat in 2018 and 2023 elections.
In the 2023 elections – in which the Congress was ousted from power by the BJP – Harish Meena won nearly 20,000 votes over the saffron party’s Vijay Bainsla.
By-elections will be held next week in seven assembly seats in Rajasthan.
These seven are Jhunjhunu, Dausa, Khinwasar, Chaurasi, Salumbar and Ramgarh apart from Deoli-Uniyara. Voting will be held on November 13 and the results will be announced on November 23.
With input from PTI
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