Rajbala Ola, daughter-in-law of former Union Minister and veteran Jat leader Sis Ram Ola who died recently, will be the Congress candidate from Jhunjhunu constituency for the upcoming lok Sabha elections.
After Ajay Maken from New Delhi, where no other nomination for primary candidates came forward, Satyanarayan Patel formally won the first ‘primary’ lok Sabha seat for as Congress candidate for the Indore lok Sabha constituency. Rajbala, former Zilla Pramukh of Jhunjhunu, was elected by Congress men as their candidate through ‘primary’, a pet project of party vice-president Rahul Gandhi to strengthen grassroots of the democracy.
She got 504 out of total 816 votes polled, whereas her nearest contestant Shrawan Kumar bagged 287 ballots. Of the total 968 voters, 816 caste their votes. As many as 25 ballots were rejected. After the process was over, Rajbala, who is the wife of former State Minister Brijendra Ola, was declared winner of the Jhunjhunu primary. Rajbala was also challenged by her son Amit Ola, but his nomination was rejected.
On the other hand, sources said that social worker and young entrepreneur Ratan Sharma has emerged as one of the contender to bag Congress ticket from Churu. Other contenders from Churu are Rafik Mandelia who lost last lok Sabha election by a huge margin in Godara.
“Despite BJP wave in Rajasthan, Sharma is on a strong footing to wrest the seat from BJP candidate, who has been winning from this seat for the last four terms. Sharma is well known social activist, who is famous in the locality for organising Vipra Mahakumbh on a huge scale,” an AICC functionary from Rajasthan told The Pioneer.