IPS officer’s wife to take on Vasundhara Raje in Jhalrapatan

JAIPUR: A serving IPS officer’s wife, Mukul Chaudhary, has decided to contest the upcoming assembly election against Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, marking perhaps the first time a serving officer’s family member is taking on the ruling CM.

Her husband, Pankaj Chaudhary, a 2009 batch IPS officer, is considered to be at loggerheads with the BJP government in the state. “My wife is an individual. She can do whatever she wants. I have nothing to say on this,” he told ET.

Chaudhary, currently serving as superintendent of police (SP) in the State Crime Bureau, had run into rough weather with the BJP government, when he was posted as SP in Bundi in 2014.


His wife, Mukul Chaudhary, daughter of a state administrative officer, has political lineage to build on while contesting against Raje in Jhalrapatan. Her mother, Shashi Datta, was law minister in Bhairon Singh Shekhawat’s BJP government in 1993. Later, Datta lost election from Hindaun in 2008 on a BSP ticket.

“I am not fighting against Raje because the BJP government has victimised my husband. I am contesting because Jhalraptan is my birthplace and there has been no development in my home town in last 15 years since Raje has been representing,” she told ET.