Gujarat: Rajpalsinh Jadav, BJP Candidate From Panchmahal Constituency (image-facebook/Rajpalsinh M. Jadav)

By dropping the sitting MP Ratansinh Rathod, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to a grand ticket to former district Panchayat President Rajpalsinh Jadav in the Panchmahal constituency. The first list announced by the saffron party consists of 195 candidates.

The 41-year-old has been an active member of the RSS. He began his political career during the early days of his student days. Born in 1982, Rajpalsinh hails from the Baraiya Kshatriya community. 

The Baraiya Kshatriya Community comes under the Other Backward Class (OBC) category. And the large majority of the constituency is of voters that belong to this constituency. As for his educational qualification, he has completed B.ED.

Rajpalsinh began his political career at the very young age of 19 after being elected to the Karoli village panchayat for the first time. Later, he remained an active member at various levels in local self-governance bodies since then. 

Being an active member of the party, he has served for 24 years in the BJP and has also served as a member of District Panchayat for two terms. Rajpalsinh is a member of the State Executive of Gujarat BJP. The seat to which Rajpalsing is fielded is currently occupied by BJP MP Ratansinh Rathod. 

Panchmahal constituency is one among the 26 Lok Sabha constituencies. This constituency was created as part of the implementation of the delimitation of parliamentary constituencies in 2008. In the first held election,  Prabhatsinh Pratapsinh Chauhan of BJP became the MP from winning the seat. 

In the 2019 general election, Ratansinh Rathod won the seat by securing 7,32,136 votes against Congress candidate Khant Vechatbhai Kuberbhai. Rathod was a Congress rebel who sided with the BJP after winning as an independent candidate in the 2017 assembly polls from the Lunawada constituency.