In Rajasthan, Congress Breaks Jinx, Opens Account After A Decade

In December 2023, the Bharatiya Janta Party recorded a massive victory in the assembly polls of the Hindi heartland (Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan). Six months later, while the BJP could retain its Lok Sabha seats in Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, at the same time the saffron party failed to make a hattrick in Rajasthan.

In the past two Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019, the BJP in Rajasthan had swept all 25 Lok Sabha seats, irrespective of whichever party ruled the state.  However, after a decade, the Congress has opened its account in the Lok Sabha polls in desert state. As per the official website of the Election Commission of India, the ruling BJP has won 14 seats in Rajasthan, whereas the Congress and its INDIA Bloc allies have managed to sweep at least ten seats.

In the 14 seats where BJP has won, some candidates are Bhagirath Choudhary in Ajmer, Bhupendra Yadav in Alwar, Damodar Agarwal in Bhilwara, Arjun Ram Meghwal in Bikaner, CP Joshi, in Chittorgarh, Manju Sharma from Jaipur, Lumba Ram from Jalore, Dushyant Singh from Jhalawar, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat from Jodhpur, Om Birla from Kota, PP Choudhary from Pali, Mahima Kumari from Rajsamand and Manna Lal Rawat from Udaipur.

Out of these 14, some prominent names include Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla, who defeated Prahlad Gunjal in Kota and won with a margin of 41,974 votes, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, the current Union Jal Shakti minister, who won against Karan Singh Uchiyarda. Dushyant Singh, the son of former chief minister Vasundhara Raje also won with a margin of 370898 votes.  

How did Congress break the Jinx?

In Rajasthan, the political arena is bipolar and is dominated by the Congress and BJP, leaving hardly any space for a third political force to emerge. But following the two consecutive electoral losses for the Congress in the 2014 and 2019 elections, wherein the party couldn't score a single seat, they were forced to look for coalitions. According to sources in Congress, the timely alliance with three local parties and a united front in the party, unlike in the assembly polls, was instrumental in helping them open an account in the state after 10 years.

The allies, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M), Rashtriya Loktantrik Party, and Bharat Adivasi, with whom Congress had got into an alliance as a part of the INDIA Bloc, won three seats -- Sikar CPI(M)'s Amra Ram (SIKAR)  gainst Swami Sumedhanand of the BJP, RLP's Hanuman Beniwal (Nagaur) against Jyoti Mirdha of Congress and BAP's Rajkumar Roat (Banswara) against Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya of BJP.

The Congress, including its alliance, emerged victorious in 11 constituencies. The eight Congress candidates who emerged victorious include --  Ummeda Ram Beniwal in Barmer, who was in a close contest with BJP's Kailash Choudhary and Independent candidate Ravindra Singh Bhatti, Sanjana Jatav in Bharatpur, Rahul Kaswan from Churu, Murari Lal Meena from Dausa, Kuldeep Indora in Ganganagar, Brijendra Singh Ola from Jhunjhunu, Bhajan Lal Jatav from Karauli-Dholpur, and Harish Meena from Tonk Sawai Madhopur constituency. Out of eight, four seats belong to eastern Rajasthan, which has a considerable Gurjar population and enjoys the stronghold of Congress leader Sachin Pilot.

The results indicate BJP's reverses in the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan -- which has sweeped four seats -- dominated by the Jat community. The community had staged agitation against the now-scrapped farm laws and the Agniveer scheme. Similarly, in Banswara, the BAP has emerged as a tribal force against the BJP.

Among the key candidates who lost are Vaibhav Gehlot, son of former chief minister Ashok Gehlot, who was fielded by the Congress from the Jalore seat against BJP's Lumbaram Chaudhary and former speaker and Union minister CP Joshi, who lost from Bhilwara.

Both the BJP and Congress had claimed to win all 25 seats in the state. The Lok Sabha elections in Rajasthan were held in two phases on April 19 and 26.

The 200-seat assembly has 115 MLAs of the BJP, 70 of Congress, two of the Bahujan Samaj Party, and eight independent MLAs.