‘Badlega Raj ya Rivaaj?’: Rajasthan Votes for Change as BJP Scores Decisive Victory

This analysis will be updated with poll numbers through December 3.

New Delhi: The biggest question that dominated most debates and discussions on the 2023 Rajasthan assembly polls was “badlega raj ya rivaaj”, which essentially means whether the poll outcome will lead to a change of government or custom. Over the last 30 years, Rajasthan has had a history of voting out incumbents every five years. 

The BJP is firmly ahead, with a significant lead at this point, bearing out the veracity of the former part of the legend. So decisive is its lead that conversation has now shifted to who will be chief minister.

Anti-incumbency sentiments run high during the run-up to the assembly polls, leading to tactical alignments of caste and community groups that make voting out the incumbent governments possible. 

However, this time around, Rajasthan witnessed a different mood, even as historical precedents were stacked against the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government. A range of social security schemes initiated by the Gehlot government, particularly the Chiranjeevi, a state-sponsored health insurance scheme up to Rs 25 lakh that covers most complex ailments and treatments, appeared to hold the chief minister in good stead.

Importantly, most of Gehlot’s welfare measures, like increasing minimum wages, old age pension, subsidy in LPG cylinders, and scholarships, gave long-term relief to people, contrasting that of other state governments that have largely relied on delivering cash hand-outs to different sections of the electorate. Most pre-poll surveys showed that a majority of people preferred Gehlot over others as the chief minister. 

Yet, his spending on social welfare gave him little room to focus on infrastructure development and employment. Congress’s principal rival in the state, the Bharatiya Janata Party, thus, concentrated on highlighting Gehlot’s failures on these fronts, apart from largely relying on its Hindutva and anti-corruption rhetoric. The BJP canvassed against Gehlot for his alleged failure to contain crimes against women and frequent paper leaks in entrance examinations conducted for government jobs. Above all, it amplified its allegation of “minority appeasement” against the Congress by regularly drawing focus on the brutal killing of Udaipur tailor Kanhaiya Lal by two Islamists. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi pulled all the stops to talk about Kanhiaya Lal’s murder in most of his election speeches.

Both parties, however, were pulled back by their own organisational problems. The BJP could not project a chief minister’s face, amidst the ongoing feud between the Modi-Shah duo and former chief minister and BJP’s tallest leader in the state, Vasundhara Raje Scindia. Moreover, it was torn between selecting its cadres and Scindia’s loyalists while distributing its election tickets, so much so that a number of rebels ended up challenging the official BJP candidates in a substantial number of seats. 

The Congress, too, had to face the consequences of the long-drawn rivalry between Gehlot and the second-most important party leader Sachin Pilot. Although Congress president Malliakarjun Kharge engineered a last-minute truce between the two, by allowing both leaders to pick their candidates in their strongholds, the move seemed more like a damage-control exercise than an attempt at consolidation. 

Adding to the mix of such complications was a third front led by Jat leader Hanuman Beniwal’s Rashtriya Loktantrik Party and Dalit leader Chandrashekhar Aazad’s Azad Samaj Party which may turn the largely bi-polar contest into a triangular fight in many pockets. Similarly, the Bharat Adivasi Party, a faction that emerged out of Gujarat’s Bharatiya Tribal Party, may play a spoiler for both the national parties, especially in Adivasi-dominated regions.  

Precisely because of such factors at play, political observers felt that Rajasthan saw not one but 200 elections, referring to the fierce localised battles between candidates in each of the 200 seats. The lack of a wave in favour of a party combined with factors like Gehlot’s own state-wide popularity and the absence of a BJP’s chief ministerial face could also lead to a hung outcome – a mandate that is more or less a reflection of the perceived popularity or disapproval of candidates in every constituency. Anti-incumbency against sitting MLAs of both parties could become the most crucial element in the 2023 assembly polls. All exit polls, too, have predicted a close contest.  

As the outcome is awaited on December 3, it will be significant how both the national parties perform in various regions – Marwar (61 seats), Shekhawati (21), Dhundar (58), Hadouti (17), and Mewar (43). In 2018, Dhundar and Shekhawati regions had an unassailable lead to the Congress in what was a closely fought election. Historically, the BJP has a distinct advantage over the Congress in Rajasthan. The saffron party has a greater social pool than the Congress from where it draws its support, because of which even when it is defeated, it ends up with a respectable tally. The Congress, on the other hand, crashes in electoral losses, like it did in 2013 when it won merely 21 seats compared to BJP’s 163. The BJP in 2008 and 2018 when it lost got 78 and 73 compared to Congress’s 96 and 100 respectively. 

In terms of vote shares, too, the BJP has a similar advantage, almost always hovering around the 40% mark irrespective of the outcome, while the Congress has swung between 33% to 38%.  

Two years ago, no one would have thought that the Congress could bring it this close but how Gehlot transformed the 2023 assembly polls into a tightly-fought election is remarkable. Irrespective of the outcome, his long-term welfare policies will surely become a political template for the Congress ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. If Gehlot edges past the BJP, it will surely be a turning point in Rajasthan as then the incumbent chief minister would have defeated not merely the BJP but also historical precedents but also structural factors stacked against his party.   

Some of the key constituencies to look out for:

Sardarpura: Ashok Gehlot has held this seat since 1998. He defeated BJP’s Shambhu SIngh in 2018 by securing 63% votes. 

Tonk: Congress leader Sachin Pilot is seeking a reelection here against BJP’s Ajit Singh Mehta. He defeated BJP’s Yoonus Khan by 54, 179 votes in 2018. 

Jhalrapatan: BJP leader Vasundhara Raje Scindia has been the legislator of the constituency since 2003. She secured 54% votes to defeat Congress’s Manvendra Singh, son of former BJP union minister Manvendra Singh, in 2018.

Udaipur: A BJP stronghold but Congress’s national spokesperson Gourav Vallabh’s candidature here has turned it into a seat to watch out for. He is contesting against BJP’s Tarachand Jain, who is contesting for the first time. The seat was held multiple times by BJP’s Gulab Chand Kataria, now the Assam governor. 

Tijara: The seat saw an extremely polarising campaign along religious lines, fuelled by BJP’s Baba Balaknath. The saffron-clad leader and Alwar MP Balaknath, a follower of Nath Sampradaya, is seen by his supporters as the next BJP chief minister of Rajasthan. He is pitched against Congress’s Imran Khan. 

Jhotwara: BJP has fielded former union minister and Olympian Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore here. 

Taranagar: BJP veteran Rajendra Rathore is facing a tough battle here. Rathore, too, is one of the probables for the top chair in case of a win for the BJP. 

Lachhmangarh: The state Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasara has been the MLA here since 2008. A prominent Jat leader of the state, Dotasara also faced the Enforcement Directorate raids in a case related to paper leaks in entrance exams during the election campaign. He is up against BJP’s Subhash Meheria. 

Amber: Former BJP’s state president and Jat leader Satish Poonia is contesting here against Congress’s Prashant Sharma. Poonia had defeated Sharma in 2018 by over 13000 votes.