The Huge swing of approximately 24% in favour of Congress is enough to cause a worry in the state BJP leadership which lagged behind with 20% steep fall in vote share this bypoll.
In a major morale boost for the Congress- ‘The Grand Old Party’ of India resurrected on all three seats that went for bypoll in the state of Rajasthan. Two Lok Sabha seats and one assembly seat in Rajasthan went for polling which was earlier held by the ruling BJP. The results of Alwar and Ajmer Lok Sabha seats and Mandalgarh assembly seat come as a major blow for the ruling saffron party which will, later this year, will go for assembly elections.
In Alwar, Congress’s Dr Karan Singh Yadav registered a sweeping victory defeating ruling BJP’s Dr Jaswant Singh Yadav with a margin of 1,96,496 votes. The Alwar seat went for polling as incumbent Mahant Chand Nath of BJP had died in September last year.
In Ajmer, BJP’s Ramswaroop Lamba faced a drubbing with Congress’ Raghu Sharma winning the seat by a margin of 84,414 votes. Ajmer seat was the parliamentary constituency of Congress’ Rajasthan State Congress President Sachin Pilot who lost it in 2014 General Elections to BJP’s Sanwar Lal Jat. Jat, died July last year.
On the Assembly seat of Mandalgarh Congress emerged victorious with Vivek Dhakar defeating BJP’s Shakti Singh Hada by a margin of 12,976 votes.
#RajasthanByPolls: Setback for BJP. Congress' Vivek Dhakad wins Mandalgadh assembly seat by more than 12,000 votes #HWNewsnetwork
— HW News Hindi (@hwnewsnetwork) February 1, 2018
The bypoll results of just two Lok Sabha seats may not cause many tremors in BJP, but it definitely comes as an alarm bell for the ruling party. BJP under Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje had managed to sweep all the 25 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan. Congress, could not even open its account in the state. However, the swing in vote share in just four years of BJP rule indicate towards shifting public mood.
Incidentally, the vote shares of Congress increased from 33.71% in 2014 to almost 58% in 2018. On the other hand, BJP’s vote share fell down from almost 60% in 2014 to 40% in 2018. The Huge swing of approximately 24% in favour of Congress is enough to cause a worry in the state BJP leadership which lagged behind with 20% steep fall in vote share.
On the assembly seat of Mandalgarh, BJP won with the vote share of 50% while Congress had to face a defeat with 39% vote shares. In 2018 bypolls, BJP’s vote share has plummeted to 32% while Congress’ vote share has increased by just one percent. Interesting to note here, in 2013 assembly elections, others have secured 11% vote share which showed a sharp rise of 28% in the by-polls.
There are various reasons for BJP’s falling vote shares. After the recent controversy surrounding movie Padmavat, Rajputs in the state the traditional and ideological voter base of BJP has turned against them. On the other hand, Muslim temperament seems to go against BJP after the lynching episodes in Rajasthan. Significantly, Muslim voters constitute a 9% of total population of the state.
If at all the assembly seat replicates the disposition of all the assembly seats, we can be sure of ‘The Rahul Gujarat Model’ getting repeated in the state of Rajasthan as well. In Gujarat, Congress riding on the back of Hardik, Alpesh and Jignesh improved the number of seats in the assembly, giving a much reason to worry the BJP which has held the state for more than 20 years. The developments in Karnataka too, point towards the same.
Meanwhile, the bypoll result comes with a message that – ‘BJP can be defeated’- for Congress which is shedding its deep slumber and mobilizing the booth level policies.
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