The BJP on Monday welcomed Rajasthan Congress leader and former MP Jyoti Mirdha into the party, signalling a rush to woo Jat voters in the poll-bound state.

Mirdha is the granddaughter of the late Ram Niwas Mirdha, a Congress stalwart and a prominent Jat leader from the state. Rajasthan is due for polls later this year and the BJP hopes the Mirdha family’s goodwill among the Jat community will help the party sway the voters of the community.

Mirdha said “lack of opportunities in the Congress” and the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had drawn her to the BJP.

“The BJP family has been strengthened with her (Mirdha’s) joining and it shows that winds of change are blowing in Rajasthan,” BJP general secretary Arun Singh said.

The Jats comprise around 15 per cent of Rajasthan’s population, concentrated mostly in the eastern parts, and influence the poll outcome in around 50-60 Assembly seats. In the last Assembly polls, 31 Jat candidates from different parties had won. For the upcoming polls, Jat outfits have been eyeing the chief minister’s post.

“We have set a target to elect 50 Jat MLAs this time. If we have the MLAs, we can lay our claim on the chief minister’s post,” state president of Jat Mahasabha Rajaram Meel had said recently, demanding more representation for the community from both the ruling Congress and the BJP.

So far, Rajasthan has not had a Jat chief minister despite the presence of prominent leaders from the community.

The yearning for a bigger share of the power pie by the agrarian community has made all political parties, particularly the BJP, uneasy ahead of the polls. Mirdha’s induction into the saffron party came against this backdrop.

The uneasiness in the BJP camp also stems from the reluctance of prominent Jat leader and Lok Sabha MP Hanuman Beniwal, who leads the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party, to join hands with the BJP, eyeing a larger share post-poll.

Beniwal had formed his party ahead of the 2018 Assembly polls and won three seats. Before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, he allied with the BJP and won the Nagaur Lok Sabha seat. However, he severed his ties with the BJP over the contentious farm laws and declared to go it alone in the upcoming state elections.

Beniwal had defeated Mirdha, then a Congress candidate, from Nagaur in 2019. By inducting Mirdha into the party, the BJP appears to be countering Beniwal. BJP leaders said she could be their candidate from Nagaur in the Lok Sabha polls next year.

The problem for the BJP has arisen from another front too, with its Haryana ally Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) deciding to foray into the Rajasthan polls. The JJP is led by Dushyant Chautala, a prominent Jat leader, who shares power with the BJP in Haryana and is the deputy chief minister in the state.