The 41-year-old Poonia, who represents Churu district's Sadulpur assembly seat, was named the Congress candidate from Jaipur Rural Lok Sabha seat on Monday and she will now start campaigning in the constituency.
Krishna Poonia and Rajyavardhan Rathore
The 41-year-old Poonia, who represents Churu district's Sadulpur assembly seat, was named the Congress candidate from Jaipur Rural Lok Sabha seat on Monday and she will now start campaigning in the constituency. The constituency mostly spread in rural areas is already abuzz with campaign by Rathore who made his electoral debut by winning the seat in 2014 with a margin of 3,32,896 votes. He is busy meeting people of his constituency and highlighting the achievements of the Modi government with latest being India's demonstration of the capacity to shoot down a satellite in space. "People have seen the work done by the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Development work done in the last five years is much more than what was done in 50 years," he said during his campaign on Wednesday.
"I remained in regular touch with the people of my constituency and allotted fund for development work in all gram panchayats, wards, without any bias and discrimination," a release quoted him as having said during campaigning in Kotputali area. He said his team of workers was his strength. Rathore, 49, who has been a celebrated double-trap shooter, focusses on encouraging youths for participating in sports activities and says this has received a good response from parents also. He also connects with people through social media, uploads videos of campaigning on the Facebook page and communicates through Facebook live. "Many parents tell me that their children earlier used to waste time but now an atmosphere of sports has been created all over and a spirit of sports is there among the youths. They are now running and preparing for Army recruitment," he said in such a video on the Facebook page.
He is also highlighting Centre's schemes and programmes such as Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojna, Ayushman Bharat Yojna during his political meetings, besides targeting the Congress. Rathore was a colonel in the Army and took voluntary retirement and joined the BJP in 2013 whereas Padma Shri awardee and discus thrower Krishna Poonia, who won gold medal in 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games and also participated in the Olympic Games for three times, joined the Congress the same year and contested the 2013 assembly elections, but lost. The Jaipur Rural Lok Sabha seat, which has 19.33 lakh electorates, 9.12 lakh of them female, is dominated by the Jat community, followed by Brahmin, Yadav and SC voters. The caste equation is favourable for Poonia who belongs to the Jat community.
Of the eight assembly segments in the Lok Sabha constituency, the ruling Congress has 5 seats, two are with the BJP and one is with an Independent MLA. During the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had 5 seats while the Congress had two assembly seats falling under the Jaipur Rural constituency. Rajasthan, which has 25 Lok Sabha seats, goes to polls in two phases on April 29 and May 6. The Jaipur Rural is among the 12 Lok Sabha seats which go to polls in the second phase.
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