How Ashok Gehlot’s mighty ministers have fallen

JAIPUR: Only eight of the ministers of the Ashok Gehlot government could reach the assembly again, one of them Dr Subash Garg of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).

The Congress gave tickets to 25 ministers, of whom 17 failed to retain their seats. Four ministers were denied tickets by the party.

The winners include controversial minister Shanti Dhariwal from Kota North. Dhariwal was the last minister that the party gave the ticket to, as the high command was opposed to his renomination. His role in holding a parallel CLP meeting on September 25 last year did not go down well with the leaders in Delhi. He scraped through by a narrow margin of 2,486 votes, against BJP’s Prahlad Gunjal.

The other ministers who won include Murarilal Meena from Dausa, Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya from Bhagidora, and Tikaram Jully from Alwar Rural. Jully retained his seat by 27,333 votes, defeating his nearest rival Jairam Jhatav of the BJP.

Transport minister Brijendra Ola defeated his BJP rival Nisheet Kumar by a margin of 28,863 votes.

Youth and sports affairs minister Ashok Chandna retained his seat by defeating BJP veteran and former minister Prabhu Lal Saini by a large margin of 45,004 votes.

Tribal development minister Arjun Singh Bamaniya managed to retain his seat by a small margin of 1,400 votes.

Two women ministers, Shakuntla Rawat and Zahida Khan, stood third in the electoral contest.

In Jaipur minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas has received the drubbing from first timer Gopal Sharma of the BJP.

Among the defeated ministers, Rajendra Yadav lost by the lowest margin of 321 votes while Parsadi Lal Meena lost by the highest margin of 47,068 votes.





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