Gurugram: Bharatiya Janata Party’s Jyoti Mirdha is trailing by over 40,000 votes as of 1.10 pm against her nearest rival, Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) supremo Hanuman Beniwal, from the Nagaur Lok Sabha seat of Rajasthan.

The granddaughter of Nathuram Mirdha, the late freedom fighter and popular farmer leader from Mewar region who was also a six-time Congress MP from the Nagaur Lok Sabha seat, Jyoti Mirdha won the seat in 2009 by defeating BJP’s Bindu Chaudhary.

Mirdha switched over to the BJP this election season, while Beniwal is contesting with the support of the Congress.

Mirdha is married to Narendra Gehlaut, a top businessman from Haryana, and her mother-in-law, Krishna Gehlaut, is a BJP leader and former minister in Haryana. Jyoti Mirdha’s
younger sister, Shweta Mirdha, is married to Congress’s Deepender Singh Hooda, a Haryana Rajya Sabha MP.

Jyoti Mirdha invited much media attention this election season after a video of her campaign went viral. In the video, she asks people to ensure 400-plus seats for the BJP since the party aims to change the Indian Constitution.

After Mirdha, several other BJP leaders made similar statements, triggering fears about changes to the Constitution, as well as about losing reservations among the Dalits.

According to the Election Commission of India data, out of the 12 elections for the Nagaur Lok Sabha seat since 1971, Nathuram Mirdha won this seat in 1971, 1977, 1980, 1989, 1991 and 1996.

His cousin, Ram Niwas Mirdha (popularly termed as ‘padha likha Jat‘ in Rajasthan because of his education from Allahabad University, Lucknow University and Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland), won this seat in 1984. Congress’s Ram Raghunath Chaudhary won the seat in 1998 and 1999 and BJP’s Bhanwar Singh in 2004.

(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)

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