Congress MLA and former Rajasthan Cabinet minister Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya, a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), on Monday resigned from the state Assembly and joined the BJP at its state office in Jaipur in the presence of leaders such as state BJP president C P Joshi and state in-charge Arun Singh.
He later said he was returning to his old home, referring to his early political stint with the RSS-affiliated student body Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in school and college. He also said he was “saddened and hurt” when he was denied permission to attend the Ayodhya Ram Temple consecration ceremony on January 22 by the Congress. “I follow Sanatan Dharma, I pray to gods and goddesses at temples …,” he added. Though the party’s central leaders Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi, and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury did not attend the ceremony, there was no directive to party leaders to not attend the event.
Malviya was camping in Delhi for the past few days during which time he claimed he was accompanied by Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma as he met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president J P Nadda on Sunday.
Days before joining the BJP, he had indicated that he was unhappy at being overlooked for the post of Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the state Assembly. “In 2013, I was among the names for the CLP (leader), (but after the 2018 win) I was not made a minister for three years. My name was again (overlooked) for the CLP (leader) now. Congress, in a way, is limited to some people. The vision it had for the nation and the people earlier is not there anymore,” he said on Friday.
Malviya was one of Congress’s tallest leaders in the Mewar-Vagad region. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1998 on a Congress ticket from Banswara while he was still a village pradhan. After being an MP, he became the Zila Pramukh twice before winning his first Assembly election in 2008. At present, he is in his fourth consecutive term as a Congress MLA from Bagidora. Even in 2013, when the Congress was restricted to just 21 seats — its worst-ever performance in the state — Malviya managed to retain his seat. Between 2008 and 2013, he held various portfolios over various durations in the Ashok Gehlot government, including Rural Development, Tribal Area Development, and Technical Education.
After the Congress returned to power in 2018, Malviya was overlooked for the Cabinet. During the 2020 political crisis, his name cropped up in the FIR registered with Rajasthan Police’s Special Operations Group (SOG) as Sachin Pilot and Gehlot fought over control of the party. At the time, Malviya claimed that he had been with Gehlot for the past three decades.
Months after the rebellion, in January 2021, he was made the state Congress vice president before being made a Cabinet minister in November 2021 in charge of the Water Resources department along with the Indira Gandhi Nahar Pariyojana (IGNP) and the Water Resource Planning Department. In August 2023, he replaced another tribal leader from the region, Raghuveer Meena, in the CWC.
State Congress president Govind Singh Dotasra on Monday said “such people leaving won’t affect the party, but strengthen it”. He said there had been complaints against Malviya around the 2013 Assembly elections about working against other Congress candidates, leading him to clarify that he won’t do such a thing again. Dotasra said the reason why Malviya wasn’t made a minister for about three years after the 2018 win is that there were similar complaints against him once again that had again led to him apologising to the high command.
“The party kept forgiving him and giving him opportunities. But when it became certain that he wouldn’t get a Lok Sabha ticket, he joined the BJP,” Dostara said, adding that if Malviya was indeed such a tall leader he wouldn’t have had to “run from pillar to post in Delhi for three days” before he was allowed to join the BJP.
Once Malviya’s resignation is accepted, the Congress’s strength in the Rajasthan Assembly will be down from 70 to 69. The ruling BJP has 115 MLAs.
Malviya’s Bagidora Assembly seat is part of the tribal-dominated Mewar-Vagad region in the state’s south that covers seven districts, where the BJP is considered to be stronger. Of the state’s 25 Scheduled Tribe (ST)-reserved Assembly seats, 16 are in these seven districts apart from two that are reserved for Scheduled Castes (SCs).
Of the total 35 seats in these seven districts, the BJP holds 23 constituencies, the Congress has seven, including Bagidora, while five are held by others. In last year’s Assembly elections, the Congress was the strongest in Banswara district, where it held four of five seats, even as it drew a blank in Bhilwara, Chittorgarh, Pratapgarh, and Rajsamand, and won two seats in Udaipur and one in Dungarpur. With the exit of its tallest leader from Banswara, the party will be further diminished in the region.
Aisha Patel is a dedicated Indian correspondent with a deep understanding of the nation’s diverse affairs. With a background in Indian culture, politics, and current events, she provides in-depth analysis and timely reporting on domestic issues within India.
