Importance of being Satish Poonia: Why BJP’s key Rajasthan Jat face is its Rajya Sabha pick

Two years ago, despite telltale signs, the BJP chose to overlook the palpable Jat unrest in Rajasthan ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. On June 4, 2024, when the poll results were announced, the Opposition INDIA bloc managed to win 11 of the state’s 25 seats, five of them with Jat candidates. The results ended a 10-year drought for the Opposition, which had drawn a blank in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls in Rajasthan swept by the BJP.

Known for his “plain-speak”, Poonia is among those Rajasthan BJP leaders who are deeply trusted by the party’s central leadership, with others being Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav, and even Union Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma.

RSS roots to taking on Raje

Poonia got his first lessons in politics from his father Subhash Chandra Poonia, who was the head of Rajgarh Panchayat Samiti in Churu. Influenced by the RSS, Satish Poonia joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the Sangh’s student wing, in 1982, when he was about 18 years old. He held different roles as a student leader and was elected general secretary of the Rajasthan University Students’ Union in 1989.

He then moved on to the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), the BJP’s youth wing, and was its state president in 1998-99, its national executive member between 2000 and 2004. He also contested Churu’s Sadulpur Assembly bypoll in 2000 but came third.

In 2004, he was appointed as the general secretary in the Rajasthan BJP, a post he would go on to hold for 10 years. In between, he contested Assembly elections again, this time from Jaipur’s Amber in 2013, but lost by just 329 votes.

Five years later, he managed to win his first election and was elected to the Assembly from Amber in 2018. In 2019, the party’s central leadership appointed Poonia as its state unit president. Although Poonia had successfully led several campaigns in the past, it was going to be his most challenging assignment: to lead the party’s internal pushback against two-term CM Vasundhara Raje, who was voted out of power just months ago in December 2018, while ensuring limited fallout.

Over the next three-and-a-half years, a power tussle played out openly – through public statements, official appointments and suspensions – between Raje and her critics within the party. In 2020, Poonia appointed Raje’s detractor Madan Dilawar and Diya Kumari, who was not on good terms with Raje then, in the BJP state executive. While some Raje loyalists also figured in the list, it was a far cry from Raje’s iron hold when her loyalists headed the state unit.

In some cases, the infighting became bitter. In 2021, Poonia expelled Raje loyalist and former minister Rohitashav Kumar Sharma from the BJP for six years over the latter’s comments against the party’s state leadership. Poonia also publicly repeated that the central leadership will have the last word on the CM candidate, which didn’t go down well with Raje supporters. In turn, Raje skipped most party meetings chaired by Poonia and kept away from campaigning in bypolls from 2019 to 2023, with her camp targeting Poonia for the party’s poor showing.

While Poonia was replaced with three-time MP C P Joshi as the state BJP president in March 2023, perhaps to assuage Raje ahead of the Assembly polls later that year, he had largely done his job. When the BJP returned to power, the party chose Bhajan Lal Sharma, a first-time MLA, as the CM, marking a significant shift in state politics, and breaking the 25-year cycle of the Congress’s Ashok Gehlot and Raje taking turns at the helm.

2024 Jat unrest

In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress-led INDIA alliance swept the Jat belt in Rajasthan, which includes the Shekhawati region. Ahead of the polls, there was a perceptible anger towards the BJP for a host of reasons: denial of a ticket to sitting Churu MP and Jat leader Rahul Kaswan, denying the community their first ever CM or Deputy CM post despite Jats accounting for the largest share of the population among all castes, unrest among farmers, non-inclusion of Jats of Bharatpur and Dholpur in the Centre’s Other Backward Class (OBC) list, and the sidelining of “Jat ki bahu” Vasundhara Raje.

Another reason for the Jat dissatisfaction cited then was the sidelining of the BJP’s first and only Jat state president Satish Poonia. Such was Poonia’s support within the community that effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then national party president J P Nadda were burnt right outside the BJP’s state headquarters when he was replaced as the Rajasthan BJP chief.

The BJP tried to stem the dissatisfaction, but only through what some viewed as “half measures”. The party inducted former Congress leader Jyoti Mirdha – who hails from one of the two influential Mirdha clans – in 2023 and then fielded her from the Nagaur Lok Sabha seat in 2024. Nationally, the BJP allied with the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), gave Bharat Ratna to former PM Chaudhary Charan Singh, and propagated that Rajasthani Jat leaders were appointed on several key posts, including Jagdeep Dhankar as Vice President and Kailash Choudhary as a Union minister.

Some of the key Lok Sabha contests in the state, such as in Churu, Jhunjhunu, and Nagaur, witnessed a direct Jat versus Jat contest – all won by the INDIA bloc. The Opposition alliance also banked on winning Jat candidates in other seats, such as Amra Ram in Sikar and Ummeda Ram. But a Jat leadership void in the Rajasthan BJP had cost the party dearly in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Poonia’s involvement in state politics declined sharply after the 2023 Assembly results. Although he was removed as the state chief in March 2023, his stature had grown from taking on Raje as well as his brisk engagements throughout the state as party chief. Within four years, Poonia, a first-time MLA, had become a contender for the CM’s post in 2023, but lost his Amber seat to a Congress candidate.

Haryana breakthrough

However, after the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Poonia was appointed as the party’s Haryana in-charge ahead of the state’s Assembly elections. Poonia delivered once again – despite most exit polls showing a clear Congress win, the BJP defied anti-incumbency to cross the halfway mark and form a government for the third consecutive term in Haryana.

Beyond Rajasthan, Poonia’s influence was cemented by the party’s performance in Haryana. Now, with a Rajya Sabha nomination, he has arguably emerged as among the party’s top Jat leaders.

However, despite his achievements, the BJP may not want to see Poonia as CM or in a powerful role within the state, party insiders said. While Poonia’s skills and stature make him indispensable for the party, they are precisely the reason why the party may not want to see him in a significant position within the state. By pushing a Jat leader to the forefront, the BJP may run the risk of alienating its traditional vote banks. Already, there is chatter about the BJP overlooking prominent Rajput leader Rajendra Rathore, also a CM contender in 2023, for a Rajya Sabha seat.

Thus, in sending Poonia to the Rajya Sabha, the party has struck a delicate balance of trying to assuage the Jats while trying to keep Poonia away from a more direct involvement in state politics.

While the BJP has fielded two candidates – other being ex-MLA Alka Gurjar – the Congress has fielded one, sitting Rajya Sabha MP Neeraj Dangi. Going by the current strength of both parties in the Assembly, the BJP is comfortably placed to win two seats, while Dangi is expected to retain his seat.