The BJP on Tuesday sprang a surprise by naming Bhajan Lal Sharma Rajasthan’s new Chief Minister and said Diya Kumari and Premchand Bairwa would be the Deputy CMs. Kumari’s name was the least surprising among the trio because for the past several months it was apparent that her star was on the rise. She was also considered among the potential CM candidates.
Kumari, 52, is a member of the erstwhile Jaipur royal family. Her paternal grandfather was Man Singh II, the last ruler of Jaipur. Even before the Rajsamand MP was drafted in to contest the Assembly elections — she won the Vidhyadhar Nagar seat in Jaipur by 71,368 votes — she was considered a potential top leader in party circles, with parallels drawn with former CM Vasundhara Raje who is from the erstwhile Gwalior ruling family in Madhya Pradesh and married into the erstwhile royal family of Dholpur in Rajasthan.
As Tuesday’s announcements finally shut the door on Raje’s hopes, the theory about the BJP propping up Kumari, now a Deputy CM-elect, as the alternative woman royal face to Raje will only grow stronger. The party’s decision to deploy her in the state showed that while the graph of her political career was on the rise, in contrast, Raje, a former two-time CM, was out of favour with the central leadership.
Incidentally, it was Raje who was instrumental in bringing Kumari into the BJP ranks before the 2013 Assembly elections when the former was the party’s CM candidate. Kumari joined the BJP at a rally in her presence, then BJP president Rajnath Singh and current Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who at the time was the Gujarat CM. Kumari contested the elections that year from the Sawai Madhopur Assembly constituency and was pitted against both the Congress’s Danish Abrar and veteran tribal leader Kirodi Lal Meena, who contested on a ticket of the National People’s Party (NPP). Kumari defeated her experienced rivals to win Sawai Madhopur.
A rift dating back to 2016
In 2016, Kumari and the erstwhile royal family of Jaipur sparred with the Raje-led state government after Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) officials sealed the gates of the family-owned Rajmahal Palace hotel during an anti-encroachment drive. Pictures of the confrontation between Kumari and government officials during the sealing exercise made it to newspaper front pages and the incident drove a wedge between Raje and her.
Even as the government stood by its decision to seal the hotel, Kumari’s mother Padmini Devi led a rare protest rally over the issue in September 2016. While Kumari, then a sitting MLA, did not attend the rally, it was supported by several Rajput outfits such as the Rajput Sabha and Karni Sena. Kumari’s son Padmanabh Singh, who was unofficially installed as the “Maharaja of Jaipur” by the royal family a few years earlier, also participated in the rally.
The episode contributed to the Rajput anger against the BJP, with the community, despite being traditional supporters of the party, largely voting against it in the 2018 Assembly elections. One more incident that contributed to the Rajput ire against the BJP was the encounter of gangster Anandpal Singh in 2017.
Kumari did not contest the 2018 Assembly elections in which the Raje-led BJP was voted out of power. In 2019, the party fielded her from Rajsamand in the Lok Sabha polls, which she won by a huge margin.
Since then, Kumari’s importance in the BJP camp has increased. Over the last few years, she has found a place in the party’s state executive as a general secretary, addressed press conferences against the Congress government, and led protests. Despite the 2016 episode, Kumari has refrained from speaking out publicly against Raje or any other state BJP leader.
Kumari’s late father and former titular king of Jaipur, Bhawani Singh, contested the 1989 Lok Sabha elections on a Congress ticket from Jaipur but was defeated by the BJP candidate. Her step-grandmother and former queen of Jaipur, Gayatri Devi, was elected as MP from the Jaipur constituency thrice — in 1962, 1967 and 1971. She won these polls by record margins on the Swatantra Party’s ticket.
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