Congress nominates former assembly Speaker Dr. C.P. Joshi for the Bhilwara Lok Sabha seat, scheduled for polling on April 26. Additionally, Damodar Gurjar has been shifted from Bhilwara to the Rajsamand Lok Sabha seat. This change came after Sudharshan Rawat declined to contest the election, having lost the assembly polls in 2023 on a Congress ticket.
Dr. Joshi previously won the Bhilwara Lok Sabha seat in 2009 during the tenure of former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and also served as a cabinet minister. However, the official candidate for the Banswara Lok Sabha seat is yet to be announced by the Congress. Talks of an alliance between the INDIA bloc and the Bhartiya Adivasi Party (BAP) have been ongoing for the past two weeks.
In Banswara, BAP has fielded its MLA Raj Kumar Rot against Mahendra Jeet Singh Malviyva, a former Congress MLA who recently joined the BJP and is contesting from the same seat. Meanwhile, the BJP has nominated Subhash Tambolia, a former Congress MLA who switched to the saffron party, for the Bagidora assembly bypoll scheduled for April 26. This assembly seat became vacant after Mahendra’s defection from the Congress to the BJP.
As of now, the Congress has not announced its candidate for the Bagidora assembly bypoll, with the last date for filing nomination papers being April 4. The first phase of elections will be conducted on April 19, covering seats such as Sriganganagar, Bikaner, Churu, Jhunjhunu, Sikar, Jaipur-rural, Jaipur, Alwar, Bharatpur, Karauli-Dholpur, Dausa, and Tonk-Sawaimadhopur. Withdrawal of nomination papers for these seats ends today at 3 pm.
In the second phase, nominations are being filed for 13 seats scheduled for polling on April 26, including Ajmer, Nagaur, Pali, Jodhpur, Barmer, Jalore, Banswara, Udaipur, Chittorgarh, Rajsamand, Bhilwara, Kota, and Jhalawar-Baran.
