By IANS,
Jaipur : The Congress party took early leads in 20 seats out of 25 Lok Sabha constituencies in Rajasthan Saturday, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was leading in the other five.
The Congress that had won only four seats in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls while the BJP had bagged 21.
The prominent Congress candidates who were leading included Sachin Pilot over his nearest rival Kiran Maheshwari by over 69,000 votes in Ajmer; and Girja Vyas leading in Chittorgarh over her nearest rival – sitting MP Srichand Kriplani of the BJP – by over 24,600 votes.
Similarly C.P. Joshi, Congress state president, was leading over his nearest BJP rival and sitting MP V.P. Singh by over 58,000 votes in Bhilwara.
Two union ministers in the Manmohan Singh cabinet, Namonarain Meena and Seesh Ram Ola, were leading in their respective constituencies of Tonk-Sawai Madhopur and Jhunjhunu.
In a major shock for the BJP, Manvendra Singh, son of former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh, was trailing behind Congress’ Harsh Chaudhary by over 53,000 votes in Barmer.
But the BJP was leading in Jhalawar constituency. Dushyant Singh, son of former chief minister Vasundhara Raje, was leading by over 2,148 votes.
Dausa constituency was witnessing a close race between two independents – K.L. Meena, a Meena community leader, and Qummer Rubbani Chechi, a Gujjar from Jammu and Kashmir.