Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Has Congress Found Its Champion Against Hema Malini For Mathura Seat In This Boxer?

The Congress, which won the Mathura Lok Sabha seat last in 2004, is hoping to reclaim the constituency by pitting its own celebrity against the BJP’s Hema Malini. If sources are to be believed, the Congress is all set to field boxer Vijender Singh from Mathura.

Mathura’s Jat Factor

Mathura, where the voter base is dominated by Jats, has been won the Congress only five times since the constituency went to polls in 1951-52. The seat has been a BJP bastion since the party was led to victory by Sakshi Maharaj in 1991. With the exception of the 2004 and the 2009 elections, when the Congress’s Manvendra Singh and the RLD’s Jayant Chaudhary won the seat, the BJP has dominated the Mathura Lok Sabha polls. Hema Malini has won the seat twice in a row now and is hoping to make a hat trick in 2024.

Consolidating the Jat votes had been a concern for the BJP as Hema Malini was initially an outsider. RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary, who had earlier vowed never to join the BJP, was a problem area for the saffron party as he threatened to wean away the Jat votes. However, with Jayant Chaudhary in the NDA fold now, and Hema Malini having managed to cement her image as the ‘Jat bahu’, courtesy of her marriage to Sikh Jat actor Dharmendra Deol, the BJP looks to be a formidable force now.

Congress is now hoping to get the Jat votes with Vijender, who belongs to the community.

(This is a developing story and will be updated as details come in.)