Where Nitin Gadkari meets Akhilesh Yadav meets Chandrashekhar Azad: A party to beat all parties

One explanation is the friends Beniwal has picked up across parties in his shifting political career – and the potential new ones he seems open to making. The fact that he is a Jat leader and a farmer voice doesn’t hurt.

Elected for the first time on a BJP ticket from the Khinwsar Assembly seat in 2008, Beniwal had moved on from the party by the time of the next elections. Contesting from Khinwsar in 2013 as an Independent, Beniwal had won again. By 2018 and his third win from the seat, he had his own party RLP.

Come 2019, Beniwal aligned his party with the BJP and won the Nagaur Lok Sabha seat, but then parted ways over the now-repealed three farm laws. In the 2023 Assembly polls, Beniwal was elected as an MLA from Khinwsar. In last year’s Lok Sabha elections, he became an MP from Nagaur, this time in alliance with the INDIA bloc.

While he did take a brief pause in the general elections, Beniwal has taken up his constant criticism of the Congress and its leaders since, especially in Rajasthan, his humour making it go down easy somewhat – and reinforcing the idea that he may be loyal to his constituents but that his doors are open for everyone.

And so the VVIPs have come calling through them, for his son’s birthday. Apart from Gadkari, the Union ministers who have visited include Giriraj Singh (BJP, MP from Bihar’s Begusarai), Chirag Paswan (LJP-RV, MP from Hajipur, Bihar), Jayant Chaudhary (RLD Rajya Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh), Ravneet Singh Bittu (BJP Rajya Sabha MP from Rajasthan), S P Singh Baghel (BJP, Agra), Sanjay Seth (BJP, Ranchi), and Krishan Pal Gurjar (BJP, Faridabad).

Among former CMs, Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party, Uttar Pradesh) and Biplab Kumar Deb (BJP, Tripura) have come calling, as have Jagdambika Pal (BJP MP, UP, and head of the Joint Committee of Parliament that deliberated the Waqf Bill) and former Union minister Anurag Thakur (BJP MP, Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh),

The list goes on – Rajya Sabha MPs Tiruchi Siva (DMK, Tamil Nadu), Sanjay Singh (Aam Aadmi Party, NCT of Delhi); Lok Sabha UP MPs Neeraj Maurya (SP, Aonla), Anand Bhadauria (SP, Dhaurahra), Chandrashekhar Azad (Azad Samaj Party-Kanshi Ram, Nagina); Independent MP aligned with the Congress Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav (Purnea in Bihar); and former MPs Ramesh Bidhuri (BJP, South Delhi) and Harish Dwivedi (BJP, Basti in UP).

Of course, MPs from Rajasthan have also registered their presence – the BJP’s Lok Sabha MPs C P Joshi (Chitttorgarh), P P Chaudhary (Pali) and Lumbaram Choudhary (Jalore); and Congress Lok Sabha MPs Brijendra Ola (Jhunjhunu), Harish Meena (Tonk-Sawai Madhopur), Bhajanlal Jatav (Karauli Dholpur), Kuldeep Indora (Ganganagar), Sanjna Jatav (Bharatpur), Rahul Kaswan (Churu), and Murari Lal Meena (Dausa).

Rajkumar Roat, the Bharat Adivasi Party MP from Banswara, and a fast-rising tribal leader of Rajasthan, who won as an INDIA bloc candidate, has also been to celebrate Beniwal’s son. As have Rajasthan Congress MLAs Indira Meena and Mukesh Bhakar, and former Congress MLA Chetan Dudi.

Among voters, Beniwal’s popularity draws from his outspokenness. Recently, while speaking in the Lok Sabha, Beniwal accused “the previous state (Rajasthan) government” of corruption in the Jal Jeevan Mission, without naming the Congress or Ashok Gehlot.

Former BJP CM Vasundhara Raje has also been in Beniwal’s crosshairs. And last year, after BJP Rajasthan in-charge Radha Mohan Das seemed to suggest that the RLP chief was a “chuha (rat)”, Beniwal shot back saying that if Das “misbehaves too much, he will get beaten with shoes in Rajasthan”.

He has also accused both the BJP and Congress of trying to weaken him and his party. Former RLP leader Ummeda Ram Beniwal is now the Congress MP from Barmer and Revant Ram Danga is the BJP MLA from Khinwsar. Both the switches hurt – Ummeda was considered one of Beniwal’s confidants while Danga ousted the Beniwal family from its home turf for the first time since its creation.

Beniwal claims he is undeterred by this, saying: “I will remain their political papa (father).”

For now, “papa” is doing just fine.