Congress' candidate for LS polls from Jaipur (Urban) Jyoti Khandelwal alleges 'internal conspiracy' led to her defeat

Jaipur: Differences in the Rajasthan Congress once again came to the fore on Tuesday with the party’s Lok Sabha candidate from the Jaipur (Urban) segment claiming that an “internal conspiracy” led to her defeat in the recently-held elections. Former Jaipur mayor Jyoti Khandelwal blamed the party’s state vice-president Archana Sharma for her defeat. She claimed that Archana Sharma, who was the Congress candidate from Malviya Nagar in the 2018 Assembly elections, and her husband “conspired” for her defeat. [caption id=“attachment_5707281” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. News18[/caption] “I have submitted a report to the state Congress president to probe the reasons of the defeat by taking the Malviya Nagar assembly segment as a pilot project,” Khandelwal told PTI. Claiming that some “leaders decided to make the BJP victorious”, Khandelwal added, “I have footage of the conversation of Archana Sharma’s husband. There was no party worker to man the booths in the Malviya Nagar assembly segment.” The Congress leader rejected that there was a Modi wave. “There was no ‘Modi Tsunami’ on the Jaipur (Urban) parliamentary seat. The Congress got more votes this time and the winning margin of the BJP candidate reduced,” she said, adding that the party’s vote share went up from 23 percent in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections to 33 percent this time. Archana Sharma refused to comment on the issue. However, Sharma said she didn’t have any objection to making Malviya Nagar a part of the pilot project to probe the reasons of the election drubbing.  “I don’t want to react to her statements. Make Malviya Nagar a part of the pilot project. Reasons for the defeat in other assembly segments should also be considered,” Sharma said. Khandelwal’s remarks have come at a time when the Congress high command has issued an advisory asking its Rajasthan leaders to refrain from making statements that could hurt the party’s dignity. Earlier, before the counting of the votes, Khandelwal claimed to have written to AICC chief Rahul Gandhi to conduct an inquiry into the issue.