Johri Bazar was a constituency of the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly used in the state elections between 1957 and 2003. It was one of constituencies of the state capital of Jaipur. The seat was won by Bharatiya Janata Party politician Kali Charan Saraf four times, Bharatiya Jana Sangh politician Satish Chandra Agarwal thrice, Indian National Congress politician Taqiuddin Ahmed twice whilst Communist Party of India leader Gaffar Ali once and Janata Party candidate Gul Mohammed once.

History Ahead of the 1952 Rajasthan Legislative Assembly election, three assembly constituencies were created for the state capital city of Jaipur.Bhambhri, Chandra Prakash, and Varma, Pratap Singh. The Urban Voter: Municipal Elections in Rajasthan: An Empirical Study. National Publishing House, 1973. p. 33 The Delimitation of Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies Order, 1956 created new Legislative Assembly constituencies in Jaipur, creating the Johri Bazar seat as a single-member constituency. At the time of its creation the Johri Bazar constituency consisted of the Jaipur Municipality wards 3, 4, 5 and 10.Delimitation of Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies Order, 1956. (Corrected Up to the 31st March 1957). Government Press, 1957. p. 567 The constituency was located in the north-eastern parts of the city. It had a mixed population, with some two-thirds of voters being Hindus and Jains, and the remaining third being Muslims. The Muslim community of Johri Bazar had settled in the city during the Mughal period, becoming involved in jewellery and stone-cutting trades. But among the Muslim voters there was also a significant number of cobblers and other workers from low-incomes trades. The Hindu community was also largely involved in commerce.

In the 1957 Rajasthan Legislative Assembly election the seat was won by the Hindu nationlist Bharatiya Jana Sangh, whose candidate Satish Chandra Agarwal defeated the Indian National Congress candidate Shah Alimuddin.Baxter, Craig. The Jana Sangh: A Biography of an Indian Political Party. University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated, 2016. 100

In the 1962 Rajasthan Legislative Assembly election fifteen candidates contested the Johri Bazar seat. However, the battle for the seat was primarily a triangular contest between the incumbent Jana Sangh legislator Agarwal, Congress and the Swatantra Party. The Congress Party opted to field Aminuddin, the Nawab of Loharu State, who had no prior electoral experience.Varma, Shanti Prasad. Elections and Political Consciousness in India: A Study. Meenakshi Prakashan, 1967. pp. 95-96 Taqiuddin Ahmed, the son of Shah Alimuddin, had wished to run as the Congress candidate. After the Congress Party allotted the constituency to Aminuddin, Taqiuddin Ahmed became the Swatantra Party candidate. Agarwal managed to retain the seat, with Taqiuddin Ahmed finishing in second place and Aminuddin in third place.

Ahead of the 1967 Rajasthan Legislative Assembly election the constituencies in Jaipur went through redistricting, through the Delimitation of Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies Order, 1966, which expanded the number of Jaipur city constituencies from three to four. The redrawn borders of the Johri Bazar constituency included the wards 13 to 21 and ward 32 of Jaipur Municipality (the ward organization of the city had also changed since the 1956 districting exercise).Delimitation of Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies Order, 1966. 1967. p. 304 Agarwal won the Johri Bazar seat for a third time in a row in the 1967 polls.

In the 1970s and 1980s new slum areas emerged within the Johri Bazar constituency, such as Ram Nagar, Saraswati, Pahari and Ganpati. The squatters settling in the new slum areas were drawn to eastern Jaipur, to access the labour market emerging around construction work in the three middle class neighbourhoods Jawahar Nagar, Malvia Nagar and Raja Park. As the population of the constituency grew, an electorate with a significant Muslim population and mix between dominant middle-class areas, commercial areas and large slums became its defining characteristics of the constituency.Contemporary Indian Women: Modernization and women's development. New Academic Publishers, 1996. p. 3States Politics in India. Mittal Publications, 1995. p. 385

Ahead of the 1972 Rajasthan Legislative Assembly election, the Congress(R) formed an electoral alliance with the Communist Party of India (CPI). Johri Bazar was one of five assembly seats allocated for the CPI to contest with Congress(R) support. Both the Swatantra Party (who had won all Lok Sabha parliamentary elections in Jaipur since 1962, led by the erstwhile Maharani of Jaipur State Gayatri Devi) and the Jana Sangh (who had won the seat thrice) had high hopes to win the seat. CPI, on the other hand, lacked strong presence in the constituency.Bhambhri, C. P., and P. S. Verma. VOTING BEHAVIOUR: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE MAJORITY AND MINORITY COMMUNITIES. The Indian Journal of Political Science, vol. 35, no. 4, 1974, pp. 332–39. JSTOR. The CPI fielded its Jaipur unit secretary Gaffar Ali, a veteran of the Praja Mandal movement.Link Indian Newsmagazine. Vol. 14, Issue 3. 1972. p. 11 Gaffar Ali won the contest, winning 45% of the vote. The Johri Bazar seat was again redistricted with the Delimitation of Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies Order, 1976, whereby the Jaipur Municipality wards 21, 23, 27 and 30 were allocated to the Johri Bazar constituency.Delimitation of Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies Order, 1976. Election Commission, India, 1976. p. 403 Gaffar Ali ran for re-election in the 1977 Rajasthan Legislative Assembly election, but was defeated by the Janata Party candidate Gul Mohammed.

Taqiuddin Ahmed, running as the Congress(I) candidate, won the Johri Bazar seat in the 1980 Rajasthan Legislative Assembly election as part of the Indira Gandhi resurgence nationwide. During the 1980s and 1990s the politics of Johri Bazar was dominated by the competition between Taqiuddin Ahmed and Kali Charan Saraf of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, the successor part of the Jana Sangh). In 1985 Kali Charan Saraf won the Johri Bazar seat. Kali Charan Saraf, who became the state Law Minister, would held the seat until 1998 when Taqiuddin Ahmed recaptured it.Frontline, December 18, 1998. p. 18

Ahead of the 2003 Rajasthan Legislative Assembly election, there was media reporting indicating that Kali Charan Saraf (now the BJP state treasurer) was seeking a ticket to contest another constituency, possibly the Jaipur Rural seat. On the Congress side there were tensions between potential candidates. Taqiuddin Ahmed wanted to run for re-election but Congress leader Sayyed Khan reported wanted Jaipur Stock Exchange chairman K.L. Jain to contest the Johri Bazar seat. Suraj Khatri, former joint secretary of the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee, was another Congress heavyweight wanting the Johri Bazar ticket. In the end Sayyed Khan stood himself as the Congress candidate, but was defeated by Kali Charan Saraf. The Johri Bazar constituency disappeared 2008, one of 36 Rajasthan Legislative Assembly seats affected by a delimitation exercise.Auerbach, Adam Michael. Demanding Development: The Politics of Public Goods Provision in India's Urban Slums. Cambridge University Press, 2020. pp. 36, 116-117

Members of the Legislative Assembly YearNameParty 1957Satish Chandra Agarwal 196219671972Gaffar Ali 1977 Gul Mohammed 1980 Taqiuddin Ahmed 1985Kali Charan Saraf199019931998 Taqiuddin Ahmed 2003 Kali Charan Saraf

Election results 1957

1962

1967

1972

1977

1980

1985

1990

1993

1998

2003

References