Rajasthan Cong leaders Jyoti Mirdha, Sawai Singh Choudhary join BJP

Rajasthan Congress leaders Jyoti Mirdha and Sawai Singh Choudhary switched to the BJP here on Monday ahead of the state assembly elections due later this year.Mirdha, a former MP from Nagaur in Rajasthan, and Choudhary joined the BJP in the presence of senior leaders including Rajasthan BJP chief CP Joshi at the party headquarters in Delhi.

Rajasthan Congress leaders Jyoti Mirdha and Sawai Singh Choudhary switched to the BJP here on Monday ahead of the state assembly elections due later this year.

Mirdha, a former MP from Nagaur in Rajasthan, and Choudhary joined the BJP in the presence of senior leaders including Rajasthan BJP chief CP Joshi at the party headquarters in Delhi. ''The BJP family has been strengthened further,'' party general secretary and Rajasthan in-charge Arun Singh told reporters.

However, Rajasthan minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas downplayed the development, claiming it will not have any impact on the polls.

Mirdha may be from a political family background, but she is not an active personality in politics, he claimed.

''As elections are coming, some are joining BJP, some are joining Congress. This will go on,'' Khachariyawas told reporters in Jaipur.

''These people were not active... Jyoti Mirdha won the elections on the Congress banner... if you change parties at the time of elections, it does not have much impact,'' the Congress leader said and claimed that the state would again vote the Congress to power.

The Mirdha family has been at the centre of politics in the Marwar region of Rajasthan for decades. Jyoti Mirdha's grandfather Nathuram Mirdha had influence in Congress and state politics. Nathuram was MP and MLA many times.

Jyoti Mirdha is a doctor by profession. She contested and won the Lok Sabha elections from Nagaur in 2009 but lost in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Nagaur is a Jat-dominated area. The Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) has tried to gain a hold in this area in the last few years.

In the 2018 Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party left the Nagaur seat for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) ally RLP.

RLP convener Hanuman Beniwal emerged victorious from this seat against Congress candidate Mirdha. Beniwal later parted ways with the NDA over the farmers' law issue.

Former IPS officer Sawai Singh Chaudhary also joined the BJP on Monday. Sawai Singh contested the 2018 assembly elections from the Khinvsar seat on a Congress ticket.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)