Rajasthan election: A tapestry of royalty, caste and communism

The lure of royalty has often turned conventional political wisdom on its head in this city named after Rao Bika ji, the founder of Bikaner.

The lure of royalty has often turned conventional political wisdom on its head in this city named after Rao Bika ji, the founder of the former princely state of Bikaner. And the upcoming polls may be no different. For in the fray again is the sitting Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator, Sidhi Kumari, who has won three times on the trot the Bikaner (East) seat carved out in 2008.

BJP legislator Sidhi Kumari won three times on the trot the Bikaner (East) seat. (ANI)

Aged 50 and unmarried, Kumari is the granddaughter of the late Karni Singh, the state’s last Maharaja who was an Olympian shooter and five-time member of Parliament from Bikaner. But unlike her sociable grandfather, she’s a veritable recluse. Overprotective of her privacy, she’s unapproachable and out of the reach of most of her constituents.

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Hers is a curious case of gaining from a legacy without emulating it. Such lack of social skills would’ve cost lesser public figures their popularity and position in the desert state’s deferential milieu. But Kumari has turned the politically suicidal liability that’s absenteeism into an art form that enhances her mystique. Scores of voters -- men and women alike -- in her constituency regard her aloofness a blessing in disguise.

At her election office in the city, one of her aides, Mumtaz Ali Bhati, admitted that the legislator loathed attending bereavements or turning up for weddings. “It’s in her nature, she’s not a show-person,” he averred. Her secular denial of patronage keeps at bay the kind of undesirable elements whose activities have sullied images of elected representatives across parties.

But Kumari who lives in her private quarter in the city’s Lalgarh Palace complex, was forced out to counter allegations of perjury in her assets-disclosure to the Election Commission. The one whose target she became was her celebrity aunt, Rajyashree Kumari, who, like her father Karni Singh, has been a famous marksperson. The charge: Kumari showed properties under litigation as part of her assets.

Teflon royal coats

The royal clan’s scions are all women; Sidhi Kumari’s father, Narendra Singh, who had three daughters, is no more. The publicly aired property dispute left many red faces in the BJP. But Kumari’s spell on her electorate remains undiminished. Her royal coats are apparently made of Teflon.

“Why pick on royalty? Such things happen in all families. It doesn’t concern us. If Kumari doesn’t help us, she also doesn’t trouble us like so many other MLAs who run cabals and protect musclemen,” reasoned Amit Sudan, a local pharmacist. Indeed, Kumari doesn’t play favourites, and her local area development funding is impartial. The bureaucracy implements it efficiently as she doesn’t interfere in their work by making unreasonable demands. A strictly no-go area for her is seeking postings and transfers of officials in which several state politicians excel.

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The net gain of her work culture is that she does not face the kind of anti-incumbency most incumbent legislators are facing. The life of luxury she has inherited isn’t flaunted in public. “She mostly moves around in an Alto car,” insisted a BJP corporator. His claim wasn’t contradicted by Bikaner-based journalists.

In fact, Kumari’s way of minding her business is in stark contrast with other BJP and Congress MLAs, some of whom are accused of using police to harass people or patronise unwanted elements; others have relatives who do this. A case in point is the Congress’s BD Kalla, who represents the only other city seat, Bikaner (West).

A minister and five-time legislator, Kalla has a good personal image. But the shenanigans of his nephews are a reference point his rivals use to get at him. The BJP has fielded against him a Hindutva hardliner, Jethanand Vyas, who churns out religious binaries to polarise voters. Many find his lexicon a negation of the culinary flavors that earned the city the moniker: India’s snack-bar.

PM’s road show to woo Dalits

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s November 20 road show here wasn’t as much to boost Kumari’s chances as to put Kalla on the mat. With local MP and Union minister Arjun Ram Meghwal by his side in an open jeep, the PM’s outreach was to the Congress-inclined Dalit vote in the seven segments of the parliamentary constituency reserved for scheduled castes.

The taxi driver who drove this writer to Bikaner from Jodhpur was a Dalit. He kept citing his earlier travels with survey teams of both parties to claim the Congress’s tally would touch 90 out of 200.

Be it as it may, the BJP’s tactics aren’t without basis. They may not work in all the seven assembly segments. But they may create an opening in some. For instance, in Kolayat, where the ageing BJP strongman Devi Singh Bhati’s grandson Anshuman Singh is in contest, the party’s prospects rest on the quantum of Dalit vote the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party of Hanuman Beniwal can deny the sitting Congress MLA and Minister, Banwar Singh Bhati. The RLP nominee, Rewat Ram Panwar, is a Dalit pitted against two Rajputs.

In the constituency with over 40% SC votes, the RLP’s plebeian call to put an end to the fiefdoms of “both Bhati Rajputs” is finding resonance. A conspiracy theory doing the rounds would however have one believe that Beniwal fielded a Dalit candidate to help Devi Singh. If it’s for real, the secret accord could tilt the scales against the Congress minister facing huge anti-incumbency.

Bikaner’s kaleidoscope

If one looks at it that way, as a reserved parliamentary constituency, Bikaner mirrors our republic’s changing face and ideological variety. If it elected an erstwhile Maharaja in yesteryear, its present MP is a Dalit. While one of its assembly segments (Bikaner-East) remains in awe of royal charms, the other, Dungargarh, some 70km away in the hinterland, is considered a CPI(M) stronghold. There, the latter’s MLA Girdhari Lal Mahiya is blemish-free. He’s also reported to have done “good” work.

Some 60km away on the road to Jodhpur, the triangular contest in Nokha brings Siddhi Kumari back in the conversation. In the battle there against the Congress-BJP is the Vikas Manch of former Congress MLA, Kanhaiya Lal Jhanwar. A spirited campaigner remembered for his development work in Nokha, he had lost by a small margin to Kumari from Bikaner (East) in 2018.

The fact that he could massively bring down the seemingly invincible Kumari’s 2013 lead from 31,000 to 6000 was no mean achievement. Yet, the Congress decided to field not him but a greenhorn, Yashpal Gehlot, against the popular princess.

Several local observers consider it a “bespoke line-up” to give Kumari a cakewalk. As the Bikaner royal is an understudy of Vasundhara Raje, the Congress’s weak challenge has come to be read as “evidence” of the much-speculated compact between her and Ashok Gehlot. Such conjecturing is supported by Kumari’s own past claims of the Congress CM facilitating work in her constituency.

Not the least surprising that Kumari is counted as a sure winner in the category of Gehlot (Jodhpur), Raje (Jhalawar), Sachin Pilot (Tonk) and Diya Kumari (Jaipur), another royal in the fray in the city her ancestors ruled. Politics is always knotty, often perplexing. But the Phalodi betting-market’s catch-phrase for unexpected results -- godha udd gaya (the horse has flown)-- does not apply to these constituencies. There, the horses don’t fly.