Rajasthan assembly elections 2018: Vasundhara Raje plays hardball to remain irreplaceable

Leading the saffron party for the fourth consecutive assembly elections in the state chief minister Vasundhara Raje has so far remained the most undisputed and popular leader of BJP in Rajasthan.
Her political presence in the state has been so towering that even when she was away while BJP was in opposition, political debates, controversies and attacks revolved around her. Raje, two-time chief minister, the only woman to achieve that feat in Rajasthan, has often remarked that the state Congress is “obsessed” with her. That holds true for BJP too. As the party’s most popular leader, the biggest controversies, including the one over leadership within the state BJP, involved her.

Known to evoke the strongest of sentiments among all, be it her loyalists, party workers, voters and her political rivals, Raje perfectly fits into “love her or hate her, you can’t ignore her” saying. Every time there is an opposition to her position, she gets the last word, forcing the party high command to let her have her way. She spent the five years of her second term as chief minister amidst speculations of being replaced, emanating from her turbulent equation with national leadership. But the party had no other way than to make her the state BJP’s chief minister candidate yet again. This has definitely raised the stakes for her.

Born in 1953 into the erstwhile royal family of Gwalior, Raje’s first connect to the state came through her marriage with Hemant Singh, member of the erstwhile royal family of Dholpur, in 1972. Her political career began in 1984 as the member of the national executive. A five-time MP and four-time MLA, Raje won her first election from the Dholpur assembly seat in 1984.

She was the state BJP president in 2003 and 2013, leading the party to victories. Before 2003, when she took over the reins of the state BJP for the first time, she was a junior minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.