Profile

CP Joshi is the senior Congress leader in Rajasthan. He was the Rajasthan Assembly Speaker till 2023. He won the Nathdwara Assembly constituency five times in 1980, 1985, 1998, 2003 and 2018. However, BJP's Vishvaraj Singh Mewar defeated Joshi in the 2023 Rajasthan Assembly Elections with a margin of 7,504 votes. In the 1980 Rajasthan polls, Joshi defeated Independent candidate Hira Lal Kataria by 9,649 votes. In 1985, Joshi retained the seat by defeating Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Vijay Singh Jhala by 26,190 votes. However, Joshi was defeated by BJP's Shiv Dan Singh by 9,684 votes in 1990. CP Joshi avenged his defeat in 1998 by defeating Shiv Dan Singh with a margin of 6,647 votes and again won it in 2003 by defeating BJP's Ram Chandra Bhagora. He became the Rajasthan Cabinet Minister in the Ashok Gehlot Ministry in 1998 holding several portfolios including Education, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Ground Water, Public Health Engineering, Science and Technology. In the 2008 Rajasthan Assembly polls, Joshi was defeated by BJP's Kalyan Singh Chouhan by just 1 vote. Chouhan received 62,216 votes while Joshi managed to get 62,215 votes in the election. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, Joshi was fielded by the Congress party from Bhilwara. He won the constituency by defeating BJP's Vijayendra Pal Singh with a margin of 1,35,368 votes. He was inducted into the Cabinet of PM Manmohan Singh as Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Minister in May, 2009. He held several departments including Railways, Road Transport and Highways during this period. In 2014, Joshi contested the Lok Sabha polls from Jaipur Rural against BJP's Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore but was defeated by Rathore with a massive margin of 3,32,896 votes. In 2018, Joshi contested the Rajasthan Vidhan Sabha polls from his traditional seat Nathdwara and entered the Assembly yet again by defeating BJP's Mahesh Pratap Singh. He is again contesting from the Bhilwara constituency in the Lok Sabha Elections 2024 against BJP's Damodar Agarwal.