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Sardarpura bye-poll to be a cakewalk for Gehlot

The February 22 poll to the Sardarpura assembly constituency in the heart of the historic Jodhpur city is expected to be a cakewalk for Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot who will take on Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Meghraj Lohia.

The chief minister, who has been associated with this constituency for the past 15 years, is a household name in Sardarpura.

With only Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Meghraj Lohia in the race, victory for Gehlot is considered a mere formality.

The Sardarpura constituency has a 190,000-strong electorate. A traditional BJP stronghold, it has a mixed population of malis, rajputs, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. But in the last assembly election, the Congress trounced the BJP candidate by a margin of 18,000 votes.

Gehlot lost the 1977 assembly election from the constituency due to the Janata Party wave by a narrow margin of 4,000 votes.

But within a couple of years, he was able to regain the trust of the electorate when he was returned to the Lok Sabha in 1980.

Except for a short break in 1989, Gehlot has been successful in winning all the parliamentary elections from the constituency since 1980. He defeated his BJP rivals in 1984, 1991, 1996 and in the last elections in 1998.

The Congress workers have been leaving no stone unturned to eusure the party's victory with workers making door to door contact and educating the electorate on electronic voting machines.

Gehlot himself is busy doing the rounds of each and every segment of the constituency.

However, Gehlot has not made a single promise to the electorate. He maintains that he will represent Sardarpura, but has to keep the well being of the entire state in his mind. ''No action of mine will make the people of this seat regret their decision to elect me,'' he has declared.

While political observers predict a '' hands down'' victory for Gehlot, the lone opposition candidate Lohia seems to be facing an uphill task in mustering even party workers for his campaign.

The absence of the BJP campaigners in the constituency gives the impression that Gehlot is the only candidate contesting the bye-election.

UNI

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