"Jyoti Mirdha's BJP Switch: What You Need to Know"

In a significant political development, Jyoti Mirdha Gehlaut, a prominent Congress leader, and former Member of Parliament, has made the decision to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), dealing a blow to the Congress party’s prospects ahead of the upcoming Assembly polls in Rajasthan. This transition unfolded as Jyoti Mirdha, along with fellow leader Sawai Singh Chaudhary, formally joined the BJP in a ceremony held in the presence of Rajasthan BJP state president CP Joshi in Delhi.

Jyoti Mirdha hails from a political family; she is the daughter of Ram Prakash Mirdha and Veena Mirdha, and the granddaughter of Nathuram Mirdha, a prominent political figure in his own right. In her political career, Jyoti Mirdha represented the Nagaur parliamentary constituency during the 15th Lok Sabha as a member of the Indian National Congress (INC). Notably, she secured victory in the 2009 elections with an impressive margin of 1.55 lakh votes.

During her tenure as a parliamentarian, Jyoti Mirdha played an influential role as a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare. She engaged in debates and discussions on various pressing issues, including the regulation of generic drugs, expanding the scope of price control for pharmaceuticals, promoting research and development in the pharmaceutical sector, legislation related to organ donation, and the introduction of the HPV vaccine.

However, her electoral fortunes took a downturn in subsequent elections, as she lost her seat in both the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. In 2019, there were protests within her own party over her candidature, as some felt she had not effectively nurtured her constituency following her loss in the 2014 polls. In the end, she faced defeat at the hands of RLP’s Hanuman Beniwal, a BJP ally, by a substantial margin of over 1.8 lakh votes. This move to the BJP is expected to have significant implications for the political landscape in Rajasthan as the state gears up for the Assembly polls.

Re-reported from the article originally published in The OneIndia