BJP president Rajnath Singh is pushing for fielding his brother-in-law Arun Singh from the Mathura parliamentary seat in the Lok Sabha elections. BJP insiders say that Singh is pushing for his relative despite BJP poster boy Narendra Modi’s reservations on his candidature.
A chartered accountant by profession, Arun Singh is a national executive member of the party. His fortunes skyrocketed after Rajnath took over as BJP chief from Nitin Gadkari. He was not only made a member of the campaign committee led by Modi, but also appointed associate in-charge of Odisha after Rajnath’s return as BJP chief.
However, his dream of contesting the Lok Sabha election from Mathura could run into rough weather as there are many claimants for the seat. As Mathura is a seat dominated by the Jats and the Brahmins, Modi wants to field yesteryears’ Dream Girl Hema Malini (she is a Brahmin and her husband, actor Dharmendra a Jat). Whereas Arun Singh is a Thakur and his caste is not as dominant as the Brahmins and the Jats.
On the other hand, Srikant Sharma, who heads BJP’s media cell and is close to Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley, is staking claim for the seat, armed with the argument that he hails from Mathura.
Sources say the RSS is rooting for Devendra Sharma, who had lost the 2012 Assembly election from the Mathura seat by a thin margin. Senior RSS leader Krishna Gopal is backing Devendra on the grounds that he is a local, a Brahmin and has a RSS background.
September 13th, 2013
Jats are the dominant caste in Mathura and the largest number of M.P.’s in the district have been jats. However i would like to point out that next to the Jats it has only been the thakurs who have represented the constituency in the Lok Sabha that too ones with strong local credentials & popularity it was Manvendra Singh who won thrice beating Prominent jats like Smt. Gayatri Devi (W/o Late Ch. Charan singh ji). K. Natwar Singh (Ex Foreign Minister) & Dr. Smt. Gyanvati (D/o Late Ch. Charan Singh ji). He was defeated by Jayant Chaudhary in 2009 Polls. Coming back to the topic none of the above mentioned candidates in the report are fit enough to take on Jayant as they hardly hold any prominence in Mathura. Manvendra Singh though a Congressman if contests on a BJP ticket can be a strong opponent for Jayant as he holds a clean reputation and will be a better candidate than people like Arun Singh who does not hail from Mathura. A local with proven credentials will be a better choice. No offences to Sh. Rajnath Singh ji but he does not posses the same popularity amongst the Thakurs which the Late Chaudhary sahab does amongst the Jats. Therefore by concluding that Sh. Arun singh relative of Sh. Rajnath Singh can be a decisive opponent against the likes of Jayant shall be a mistake as the former is hardly known in Mathura and is a outsider. Except for Jayant who in 2009 rode on the youth wave and an alliance with the BJP no outsider some of the prominent names i have mentioned above has won Mathura before and he too will be facing a lot of heat and will not find it easy to retain Mathura provided the BJP fields a strong candidate as it is the only party which will challenge Jayant.