Huge turnout at Amit Shah’s roadshow in CM Ashok Gehlot’s turf

JODHPUR: In a major face off amid heightened campaigning for state’s hottest Lok Sabha seat, BJP president Amit Shah held a massive road show in Jodhpur on Friday evening in favour of BJP candidate and Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat. Shekhawat is pitted against chief minister Ashok Gehlot’s son Vaibhav Gehlot.
After landing in Jodhpur from Jalore with former chief minister Vasundhara Raje, Shah headed straight to the city’s Gandhi Maidan and boarded a waiting vehicle adorned with flowers to begin the road show.Raje and Shekhawat stood on his sides as Shah waived and greeted people in the jam-packed city roads.
The half a kilometre stretch of the roadshow was crowded to the extent that the vehicles moved at a snail’s pace amid thunderous slogans in support of Modi. The crowd was not only on the roads but also on the buildings along one of the busiest markets of Sardarpura area.
When the roadshow began, the darkness had already descended and there was glare of lights all through the stretch, creating a mystical atmosphere with party flags, banners and balloons all around.
The BJP stirred the election atmosphere first with Modi’s rally and now with Shah’s roadshow, forcing chief minister Ashok Gehlot to put his entire might behind his son and Congress candidate Vaibhav. To counter Shah’s roadshow, Gehlot campaigned in the city all day long on Friday.
Leaving party’s rest of the candidates to fend for themselves, Gehlot has been campaigning aggressively to make his son’s electoral debut a success. Walking from street to street, the CM has been exploiting his personal contacts in different communities built over the last 40 years.
The public turnout in Shah’s roadshow on Friday has led Gehlot to arrange for the same for his son on Saturday.
Though Gehlot claimed that BJP was scared so brought Modi and Shah to Jodhpur, the CM himself has been seamlessly campaigning for his son since April 21. On Friday, he visited 58 wards of the city in a whirlwind door-to-door style canvassing right from morning to night, meeting people personally, holding group meetings appealing them for Vaibhav’s victory. Gehlot has been justifying his campaigning by saying that if a father would not work for his son, who else would.