Jaipur: The Rajasthan BJP, in its third list of poll candidates, has played it safe, repeating most MLAs on 58 of the seats announced. The party has now announced 186 candidates for 200 seats.
Many of the candidates announced are loyalists of former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, the party's best-known face in the state.
The BJP, though, is yet to make Raje's status clear in this election.
She has not been announced as the Chief Ministerial candidate in advance again and though in the second and third list her loyalists have been accommodated, confidantes like Yunus Khan and Ashok Parnami have not been given tickets.
Even in this round, Yunus Khan, who was expecting to receive a ticket from Didwana in Nagaur, was skipped. The move indicates the BJP's ambivalence towards the two-time Chief Minister.
While the party constantly signals its intentions to bench her, It appears to be aware there are few in the state who can match her in stature.
Unlike the other leaders from the state, including those who have shifted to the Centre, Vasundhara Raje is also a mass leader -- a factor the BJP cannot ignore after being out of power in the state for five years.
So while the party is contesting the coming election under a collective leadership formula, projecting Prime Minister Narendra Modi as its supreme face, it has also softened its stance towards Ms Raje between its first and second lists.
While in the first list, seven MPs were fielded and a number of her loyalists were not given tickets, the second list accommodated as many as 27 of her loyalists. Vasundhara Raje has also been allocated her traditional seat of Jhalrapatan. And in this list at least 22 of her loyalists have been accommodated.
This time, the BJP has also named the leaders who would take on Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and the other Congress stalwart, Sachin Pilot.
Mahendra Singh Rathore, a former chairperson of the Jodhpur Development Authority, has been pitted against Mr Gehlot in the Sardarpura assembly constituency. Former MLA Ajit Singh Mehta will take on Mr Pilot from Tonk.
Mr Mehta had won the 2013 assembly polls from Tonk on a BJP ticket. In 2018, Mr Pilot wrested the seat from the BJP.