Rajasthan's Kota turns grudge match, Raje loyalist Gunjal makes Speaker Birla’s hat-trick bid a tough battle

Prahlad Gunjal, a Gujjar strongman who was twice elected an MLA from the BJP, joined the Congress in March.

It's being billed as the ‘Grudge Match’ of Rajasthan’s Lok Sabha battle. As Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla vies for a hat-trick from Kota, he faces a tough challenge from Prahlad Gunjal, a Gujjar strongman who was twice elected an MLA from the BJP but joined the Congress in March. Within days, as the Grand Old Party made Gunjal its candidate, the Kota clash turned into a high-profile slugfest between rivals whose animosity has been an open secret for years.

What adds special spice to the Birla-Gunjal showdown is the latter’s closeness to former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje. Despite dominating Rajasthan politics for decades, Raje has been sidelined by BJP bigwigs in recent years. In contrast, some RSS-backed leaders were elevated in the name of creating a Gen-Next leadership - and Birla’s promotion as Lok Sabha Speaker was a part of this process. As Raje and Birla never shared warm ties, relations between Raje and her loyalists like Gunjal and RSS-supported leaders like Birla turned increasingly bitter.

Over the past few years, the Gunjal-Birla hostility had been escalating which deepened after Gunjal attacked Birla – without naming him– on the day he joined the Congress last month. Gunjal claimed he was quitting the BJP as its politics in Kota is dominated by one person and his family (read Birla) and BJP workers have to bow before“bade bhai saheb and chhote bhai saheb” (read Birla brothers). He claimed he joined the Congress as he could not compromise with his principles or self-respect.

Gunjal’s outburst soon led to a stinging response from the Birla side – and ever since the Kota combat has been a no-holds-barred clash. At an election meet, Harikrishna Birla, the Lok Sabha Speaker’s brother, attacked Gunjal bitterly and the video went viral. Reminding Gunjal of his humble origins, Birla claimed, “when Om Birla's clothes became old, who would alter them and wear them? Those who talk about principles don’t stab others, don’t make holes in the plate from which they ate.”

Gunjal countered that this attack reflected the Birla brigade’s arrogance and retorted, “if I open my mouth about the Birla family, they will have no place to hide.” After these vicious attacks, mercifully personal attacks have subsided but neither side is sparing any effort to politically shame the other. Though personal jibes are now being avoided, the electoral fight remains fierce.

Gunjal and Birla were in the same party for nearly two decades but they never shared a warm chemistry. Their differences were well-known in political circles and their bickering over multiple issues often caused acute embarrassment to the BJP.

In many ways, the Birla-Gunjal rift reflects their contrasting personalities. A two-time MLA and a sitting MP from Kota since 2014, Birla is a calm, composed politician with a soft-spoken demeanour. Despite being Lok Sabha Speaker since 2019, he retains a close connect with Kota and refrains from overtly abrasive behaviour though he now has a lot of clout in the Hadoti region through his RSS background and closeness to Home Minister Amit Shah. The buzz in political circles says that Birla had given shelter to Shah at his farmhouse in a village near  Kota when Shah, as Gujarat Home Minister, was in the dock over his alleged role in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case of 2005.

In contrast, Gunjal is a two-time MLA who prides himself on being a fiery, outspoken leader. A Law graduate, he rose rapidly through the ranks, becoming college president, district chief and state vice president of the BJP. After his closeness to Raje, he even defeated Congress stalwart Shanti Dhariwal from Kota North in the 2013 assembly polls. Despite losing the last election, Gunjal’s image as a Gujjar strongman with a vibrant grassroots connect persists and pushed the Congress to field him.

Campaign strategies of the duo also have vastly differing flavours. Birla primarily focuses on urban voters and harps incessantly on ‘Modi Guarantees’ in his speeches. He claims the PM’s leadership is a key poll issue this time and his election in Kota is only a means to ensure a third term for PM Modi. He also highlights the construction of Ram Temple as a game changer for all voters.

Gunjal retorts that this excessive reliance on Modi reflects that despite being Kota MP for a decade, Birla has no achievements to showcase. Concentrating on rural areas, he often reaches voters on foot, claims public anger is high against Birla, and accuses the Speaker’s team of terrorising voters and misusing the police and administrative machinery. Alleging that his movements and meetings are being monitored through drones, Gunjal has lodged several complaints with the Election Commission.

With the electoral clash becoming a slanging match, Kota’s key issues are getting sidelined. The long-standing demand for an airport in Kota, far from being addressed, has only led to a BJP-Congress blame game. Shockingly, even the student suicides that have repeatedly rocked Kota in recent years, hardly find any mention in BJP-Congress campaigns, social media content or election speeches. Last year, a record 26 students died by suicide in the coaching hub of Kota - but for political leaders, they seem just a forgotten statistic in election season.

Caste complexities further complicate the Kota saga.The electorate includes a large chunk of SCs, STs  and other backward castes like Meenas and Gujjars who are often decisive in electoral outcomes here. Repeated claims by Opposition leaders that the Constitution will be altered and reservations scrapped if the Modi government returns for a third term have become a real fear for many voters. Given its deep impact, Amit Shah at his rally in Kota this weekend had to clarify strongly that the BJP has no plan to end reservations in the country.

As the Kota contest moves to its final phase, both sides are haunted by fears of internal sabotage.If the Birla brigade is worried over the internal tussle which has seen the Vasundhara faction staying aloof from the contest, the Gunjal camp is suffering due to the animus of Congress’ Kota star, Shanti Dhariwal, who has openly aimed barbs at Gunjal. Some other local Congress leaders are also hardly helping the Gunjal campaign.

In sum, the toxic rhetoric of the two main candidates has turned the Kota contest into a shrill,vitriolic spectacle. Whether Birla or Gunjal will emerge victorious is still unclear but the bitterness between the duo clearly seems to be normalizing negativity in political discourse!