JAISALMER
: Former Union minister
Jaswant Singh who started his political career in 1960s could not fulfil his wish of representing his native place Barmer in the parliament. In his six-decade political career, he won four Lok Sabha polls and was nominated five times to the Rajya Sabha.
Assembly Election Results
He won twice from Chittorgarh and once from Jodhpur and Darjeeling in West Bengal. In 2009 elections, he had asked to contest from his native Lok Sabha seat but the party had some other plans and fielded him from Darjeeling. He didn’t resist and contested from an alien territory.
Realizing his age and ignorance in the party, Singh offered to contest Lok Sabha polls from Barmer in 2014. He also announced the polls to be his last election. The veteran started lobbying for ticket and faced opposition from a section of BJP leaders.
“Raje then had a strong influence in the party. She was the one who brought Congress leader Sonaram Choudhary in BJP and put her weight around his candidature from Barmer. It wasn’t difficult for Raje to eliminate Singh’s chance of contesting from Barmer,” said a source close to Singh.
Disgruntled by the denial, Singh made the tough call of going ahead as an independent candidate from Barmer. The decision hogged national limelight and BJP leaders did everything to convince him to drop the idea but he didn’t budge.
Finally, he did contest from his native place as an independent but lost to his party’s candidate Col Sonaram Choudhary by a margin of 80,000 votes.