Olympians Face Off: BJP's Col Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore vs Congress's Krishna Poonia in Jaipur Rural Lok Sabha seat

An interesting electoral combat is on the cards in Rajasthan’s Jaipur Rural constituency where two Olympians — BJP’s Col Rajyavardhan Rathore and Congress’ Krishna Poonia — will face each other in the Lok Sabha polls.

Olympian-turned-politician Col Rajyavardhan Rathore, who is the Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, had won the seat in the 2014 elections and the party has reposed faith in him again while the Congress fielded sitting MLA Krishna Poonia to contest against the former Army officer.

For Krishna Poonia, this election is a “fight of two ideologies”. She said she will be fighting the elections on the basis of issues related to the common man.

“It is okay that we are athletes but this is fight of two ideologies. The 2014 Lok Sabha election was fought in the name of (Narendra) Modi only. False promises were made and the time was just passed in ‘Jumlebazi’. I come from a simple farmers’ family and the issues which are related with the common man will be my issues in the elections.”

“This election is for the protection of democracy. Every section, be it youth, women or farmers, wants development and issue-based politics and not just ‘jumla’ (rhetoric). Farmers want right price for their crops and youths want employment. I will be contesting the polls on all such issues which impact a common man,” she added.

Krishna Poonia, who represents Churu district’s Sadulpur assembly seat, was named the Congress candidate from Jaipur Rural Lok Sabha seat on Monday and she will now start campaigning in the constituency.

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Development plank:

The constituency mostly spread in rural areas is already abuzz with campaign by Col Rajyavardhan Rathore who made his electoral debut by winning the seat in 2014 with a margin of 3,32,896 votes.

Earlier, Col Rathore highlighted the achievements of the Modi government with latest being India’s demonstration of the capacity to shoot down a satellite in space.

“People have seen the work done by the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Development work done in the last five years is much more than what was done in 50 years,” he said during his campaign on Wednesday.

“I remained in regular touch with the people of my constituency and allotted fund for development work in all gram panchayats, wards, without any bias and discrimination,” a release quoted him as having said during campaigning in Kotputali area. He said his team of workers was his strength.

Constituency-wise: 

The Jaipur Rural Lok Sabha seat has 19.33 lakh electorates, 9.12 lakh of them female. Of the eight assembly segments in the Lok Sabha constituency, the ruling Congress has 5 seats, two are with the BJP and one is with an Independent MLA.

During the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the BJP had 5 seats while the Congress had two assembly seats falling under the Jaipur Rural constituency.

Rajasthan, which has 25 Lok Sabha seats, goes to polls in two phases on April 29 and May 6. The Jaipur Rural is among the 12 Lok Sabha seats which go to polls in the second phase.

(With inputs from PTI)