Finally, former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje is back in state BJP’s posters leading to speculations, if union minister Bhupender Yadav, presently on his ‘Jan Ashirvad Yatra’ in Rajasthan, is a truce maker between two camps — one led by state party president Satish Poonia and the other by Raje?
This is the question being asked in political circles as before Yadav’s much-hyped yatra, a new poster has come up where Raje’s picture can be seen second to Poonia.
The poster carries the first picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, followed by party president J.P. Nadda and Bhupender Yadav. Next comes Poonia, then Raje, and then the leader of the opposition, Gulabchand Kataria who is then followed by union ministers including Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Arjun Ram Meghwal and Kailash Chaudhary.
Raje’s pictures were removed recently from the posters and banners outside the state party headquarters which left former CM’s followers anguished and annoyed.
While Raje remained quiet for all these months, her followers have been speaking against the state party leadership and one of her loyalists Rohitashv Sharma has also been expelled from the party for six years.
However, recently she hit back at the poster controversy for the first time and said, “I don’t believe in the politics of posters, but want to rule and dwell in the hearts of the people.”
She said that when she joined politics, her mother, Rajmataji told her that the five fingers of the hand are not the same. “So when you visit the villages, you need to unite people into a family with love for each other, despite there being differences of diverse kinds. Hence, I always intended to carry out work that can endure in their memories and hearts,” Raje added.
Meanwhile, BJP workers told IANS that the central leadership is keeping its eyes on Rajasthan and has been sending teams to review and monitor the situation.
Veteran party leaders such as C.T. Ravi and Arun Singh have already toured the state and now Bhupender Yadav is here to balance the equation to set the stage for forthcoming elections in 2023.