Jaipur: The BJP is all set for a clean sweep in Rajasthan again with the party bagging six seats and leading in 18 others in the Lok Sabha election results declared Thursday, barely five months after it lost to the Congress in the assembly polls.
BJP candidates Bhagirath Chaudhary (Ajmer), Kailash Chaudhary (Barmer), Subhash Chandra Baheria (Bhilwara), Rajita Koli (Bharatpur), Devji Patel (Jalore) and Sukhbir Singh (Tonk-Sawaimadhpur) were declared elected.
Baheria won by a high vote margin of 6,12,000 votes.
NDA alliance partner Rashtriya Loktantrik Party candidate Hanuman Beniwal is leading on the Nagaur seat.
The BJP had bagged all 25 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
Vaibhav Gehlot faced defeat in his maiden election from the Jodhpur Lok Sabha seat which was won by the BJP’s Gajendra Singh Shekhawat for a second consecutive time.
Shekhawat won the seat with a high margin of 2,74,440 votes.
Union minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore is leading in Jaipur Rural constituency by 2.89 lakh votes.
§
Over the years, Lok Sabha elections in Rajasthan have more or less been a two-party affair. Other than a seat or two, the BJP and the Congress scoop up the rest.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had won 25 seats in Rajasthan, repeating a 1984 verdict when the Congress party had won all 25 for the first time in the state.
Much of this success was attributed to the formidable Modi wave in 2014. However, the BJP lost ground in the assembly elections held in 2018 despite extensive campaigning by the prime minister.
While there was a marginal difference in the percentage of votes secured by the two parties in the assembly polls, Congress managed to win 27 more seats than the BJP with a lead of mere 0.23% of votes.
The contest this time is bound to be very close.
Relying on past victories, the BJP has fielded sitting MPs in 16 seats in Rajasthan. Tickets have also been allotted to candidates who didn’t quite share a cordial relationship with former chief minister Vasundhara Raje.
It is believed that the BJP has sidelined Raje especially because of her tussle with Amit Shah-Narendra Modi. This infighting is also likely to affect the party’s prospects in the state.
On the contrary, the Congress has fielded a mix of senior and new faces. Vaibhav Gehlot, the chief minister’s son, is fighting from the Jodhpur Lok Sabha seat against Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat. The Congress is also fielding Manvendra Singh, son of a senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh from Barmer.
During the last assembly elections, the state witnessed the emergence of a third front. A predominantly tribal party called the Bharatiya Tribal Party won two out of the eight seats in the tribal belt of the state.
The Jat community, which had been longing for strong leadership, found solace in Rashtriya Lok Tantrik Party and influential Jat leader Hanuman Beniwal. The party won three seats.
Both parties are also contesting the general elections.
Under the rule of the previous BJP government, several incidents of cow-related violence where Muslims were targeted took place. However, the Congress, despite coming to power in the state, has yet to action and confront the BJP for the lapses that took place.
Even so, in December last year, the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government took significant steps to build a positive image for the party. These include an extensive farm loan waiver and an increment in the unemployment allowance to the youth.
However, agrarian distress is still a major concern. Farmers, under the leadership of All India Kisan Sabha, has led many protests across the state. Due to drought-like conditions, crop loss has been inevitable.
With the compulsory premium deduction from the Kisan Credit Card-holding farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana and subsequent non-payment of the insurance claim, farmers in the state are largely unhappy with the scheme and have diligently resented it.
Farmers in the Shekhawati region have also raised the demand of implementation of Swaminathan report. As a result, the left managed to win two seats in agriculturally-dominant Hanumangarh and Jodhpur last year.
After the Balakot airstrikes, Modi’s ‘Vote for Pulwama martyrs’ appeal is likely to make an impact on the votes of the Rajput and Jat communities in Rajasthan that have traditionally served the armed forces. Pervasive unemployment has time and again created a negative opinion of the Modi government, but whether it would be able to deflect votes is a matter that remains to be seen.