Jaipur: The BJP announced its candidates on Monday, the final day of filing nominations for the 2026 Jaipur Municipal Corporation elections. The party faced a major challenge in distributing tickets across more than 150 wards, amid concerns that disgruntled aspirants could rebel and contest as Independents.
A series of meetings continued late into Sunday night at the BJP state office, attended by Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma, State President Madan Rathore, and senior party leaders overseeing Jaipur.
After prolonged consultations and efforts to balance various political equations, the party handed over the official Form-B documents and symbols to its selected candidates at the last moment. The BJP has fielded a mix of veteran party workers, dedicated leaders, office-bearers of the Mahila Morcha (women’s wing), and former councillors who recently left the Congress to join the BJP. A notable development in the candidate list is the BJP’s decision to field former Jaipur Mayor Jyoti Khandelwal in a ward-level councillor election.
Khandelwal, who previously served as Jaipur’s first woman mayor and later contested the Lok Sabha elections as a Congress candidate, has now been given a BJP ticket to contest a councillor seat in the 2026 Jaipur Municipal Corporation elections. Khandelwal left the Congress and joined the BJP during the last Assembly election cycle.
The BJP’s decision to field a former mayor at the ward level has generated considerable discussion in Jaipur’s political circles. Her political journey has now come full circle. Khandelwal began her career as a Congress ward councillor before rising to become Jaipur’s mayor and later a candidate for the Jaipur Lok Sabha seat. After switching to the BJP, she will once again contest a councillor election, marking a new phase in her political career. While some political observers see the move as an opportunity for Khandelwal to rebuild her position within the BJP from the grassroots level, her supporters describe it as another opportunity for her to serve the party and the city.
The BJP’s list includes candidates from the Adarsh Nagar Assembly constituency and several other prominent areas of Jaipur.
Neeraj Agrawal has been renominated from Ward 121. A former councillor, Agrawal recently left Congress and joined the BJP.
Anuradha Maheshwari, State Vice President of the BJP Mahila Morcha, has also been given a ticket and will contest from Ward 107.
The distribution of tickets triggered considerable internal competition within the BJP. In several wards, between 10 and 15 strong contenders were reportedly seeking the party ticket for a single seat. One of the BJP leadership’s key concerns was preventing denied aspirants from filing nominations as Independents or joining rival parties.
As a result, the party chose not to publicly release the complete candidate list well in advance. Instead, Form-B documents and party symbols were handed directly to the selected candidates shortly before the nomination deadline, a move aimed at limiting the possibility of rebellion.
With the nomination process now concluded, the BJP’s election machinery has shifted its focus to managing dissent within the party and persuading disgruntled leaders and workers to withdraw their nominations.
The party’s immediate priority is to ensure that rebel candidates withdraw from the contest before the September 2 deadline. Preventing multiple BJP-linked candidates from contesting the same ward will be crucial to avoiding a division of the party’s vote during the municipal elections.
(IANS)
