Rajasthan polls: Close battle on cards in Hadoti

Kota: The contest for the seats in the Hadoti region as part of the upcoming Rajasthan Assembly polls appears too close to call with caste and community equations likely to play an important role here.

There are 17 Assembly constituencies in the four districts which make up the Hadoti region. Voting in Rajasthan is slated for December 1. National Commission for Women chairperson Mamta Sharma is the Congress candidate from Bundi. She is taking on sitting MLA, BJP`s Ashok Dogera. Dogera had trounced Sharma by a margin of over 10,000 votes in the 2008 Assembly polls. This time around, too, he is expected to prove a tough challenge for Sharma. The Bundi seat, which has over 2.35 lakh registered voters, is dominated by the Brahmin community. Bharat Sharma from NPP and Naimudden Sagar of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), the other candidates for the seat, would prove to be big hurdles for Sharma as she looks to oust Dogera. Dogera is seeking another term citing the work done by him, to underline which he points at how he managed to utilised the entire MLA fund of Rs 3.80 crore for development in his area. State minister Shanti Dhariwal, who is seeking a second straight win in Kota North, too, is wooing voters on the basis of his achievements as the sitting MLA. He is facing BJP`s Prahlad Gunjal, who says that the former has only managed "cosmetic development". Mohd Shafi, the SDPI candidate for the seat, is likely to pose problems for Dhariwal as he may take away a large chunk of the minority votes. Kota North has over 2.03 lakh voters. For the Anta-Mangrole Assembly seat in Baran district, former BJP state agriculture minister Prabhulal Saini is taking on ex-Congress minister Pramod Jain Bhaya. Bhaya is believed to have strong support among the tribal voters in the area. The Mali community, with a strength of about 38,000 voters, is expected to prove a decisive factor for this seat. Prabhulal himself hails from the above community. The Anta-Mangrole constituency has 1.77 lakh voters. Former parliamentary secretary in the previous BJP government, Bhawani Singh Rajawat, is contesting the Ladpura seat in Kota. He is facing a tough challenge from Congress`s Naimudden Guddu, who had lost the last Assembly polls to Rajawat by a margin of a mere 750 votes. This constituency has over 2 lakh voters. One of the key contestants in the region, state BJP president and chief ministerial candidate Vasundhara Raje is seen as being safe in her constituency of Jhalarapatan where she is being challenged by Congress`s Meenakshi Chandrawat.