‘BJP not concerned about Ram or cow, just chair’: Lone Left candidate in Rajasthan

The Congress and its allies are hoping to break the trend where the NDA won all 25 seats in Rajasthan in 2014 and 2019. Hamza Khan met Congress Rajasthan chief Govind Singh Dotasra and the state’s only Left and INDIA bloc candidate Amra Ram in Sikar earlier this week. While Dotasra is an MLA from Laxmangarh in Sikar, Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Amra Ram lost the Assembly election last year. Excerpts from an interview with the two leaders:

Amra Ram: Rather than fulfilling any of its promises — be it bringing back black money, `15 lakh in accounts of each person, two crore jobs annually, doubling farmers’ income by 2022 — the BJP has done the opposite.

Shekhawati region sends the most number of people to the armed forces, but Agniveer has been imposed now. And in the Sikar Lok Sabha seat, there is a drinking water issue in seven (of eight) Assembly segments, excluding Laxmangarh. The MP (Sumedhanand) was neither among the people during their bad times nor did he raise issues such as water, Agniveer scheme, the black farm laws, the 13-month-long farmers’ protest, the mistreatment of our Olympian daughters. All these are our issues. And we want MSP. The misrule should end and there should be rule of people.

Amra Ram: The biggest factor is that all the secular parties which believe in the country’s unity and the Constitution but were fighting separately are now contesting under the INDIA bloc to end this misrule. Second, since my student days, I have been part of historic agitations, be it the agitation in Rawla, Gharsana (Ganganagar) or for electricity rates. When Ambani, Adani and Mallya’s loans can be waived then why not a farmer’s? So the 13-day protest where I spent five days in jail. In Modi’s ten years, it