Jyoti Mirdha Joins BJP: Who Is She?

In a blow to Congress ahead of Assembly polls, two leaders from Rajasthan quit the party to join the BJP on Monday.

Jyoti Mirdha along with Sawai Singh Chaudhary joined the saffron party in the presence of Rajasthan BJP state president CP Joshi in Delhi.

Who Is Jyoti Mirdha?

Jyoti Mirdha Gehlaut is the daughter of Ram Prakash Mirdha and Veena Mirdha and also the granddaughter of Nathuram Mirdha, a prominent politician.

Jyoti Mirdha represented the Nagaur parliamentary constituency in the 15th Lok Sabha and is a member of the Indian National Congress (INC). She won the seat by a margin of 1.55-lakh votes in 2009. She has had a meaningful impact on several issues as a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare, and has debated on issues concerning generic drugs, bringing more drugs under the price control regime, low expenditure on research and development by pharmaceutical companies, organ donation legislation, and the HPV vaccine.

In 2010, Mirdha raised an issue of considerable concern, pointing out that pharmaceutical companies were influencing doctors through gifts and travel incentives. She presented evidence to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, alleging that as many as 11 doctors and 30 of their family members were being reimbursed by pharmaceutical companies for summer trips to destinations like England and Scotland. In her letter, she highlighted a legal loophole intended to prevent doctors from accepting favors from pharmaceutical firms, which, in practice, did not effectively prevent these companies from offering such gifts.

However, she had lost her seat in 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. According to a report, there were protests from within her party over giving the ticket to her in 2019 as she had failed to nurse her constituency after losing the poll in 2014.

In the end, she had lost to RLP's Hanuman Beniwal, an ally of BJP, by over 1.8 lakh votes.