Rajasthan Jat leader plays spoiler for rivals

BARMER : The Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLTP) may have won only three of the 58 seats it contested in Rajasthan, polling 2.4% (or 856,038) votes, but it played spoilsport at the expense of its rivals in many other constituencies, including three in Barmer district.

Hanuman Beniwal, a firebrand Jat leader who left the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to form the RLTP only a month before the December 7 state assembly polls, retained his Khinvsar seat.

His fledgeling party won two more — Merta (Indira Devi) and Bhopalgarh (Pukhraj).

In Barmer district’s eight assembly constituencies, while the party didn’t win any of the six seats it contested, its candidate Ummedaramwastherunner-up in Baytu, losing to Congress’s Harish Choudhary by 13,803 votes. Surta Ram Meghwal (in Chohtan), Udaram Meghwal (in Sheo) and Narayanram Choudhary (in Pachpadra) were the chief reasons BJP candidates were relegated to the runner-up position in the three seats.

The RLTP did not field candidates to the Barmer and Jaisalmer seats.

Contesting from Sheo, Udaram polled nearly 51,000 votes (or about 25%), helping Congress’ Ameen Khan defeat BJP’S Khangar Singh Sodha by about 24,000 votes.

In the Siwana assembly seat, the Congress’s Pankaj Pratap Singh and the RLTP’S Sataram Dewasi polled nearly the same number of votes — about 20,000. Political analyst Shankarlal Dhariwal said that although the RLTP was not able to win any seat in Barmer, its performance was an indication that the BJP and the Congress were not the only choice for the voters.

The response to the RLTP shows that voters are willing to consider candidates belonging to parties other than the two principal national parties, he said.

There are two key takeaways from the Mizoram election results. The Congress has suffered its biggest defeat in the state since 1998. This has taken away the Congress’s last bastion in the Northeast. The Mizo National Front (MNF), which has got a majority in the 40-member assembly, has made a political comeback after 10 years. Although it is a part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the Centre, the MNF fought the elections on its own in the state and has said that it doesn’t need the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (Chart 1). However, unlike Assam, Tripura, Manipur and Nagaland, the BJP has not made big gains in Mizoram in terms of seats. To be sure, the BJP will have an MLA in the Mizoram assembly for the first time (Chart 2).

ZORAMTHANGA TO BE SWORN IN ON SATURDAY

Mizo National Front (MNF) president Zoramthanga would be sworn-in as the chief minister of Mizoram at the Raj Bhavan here at 12 noon on Saturday, state protocol department officials said Wednesday. Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan formally invited Zoramthanga on Wednesday to form the next government after receiving the signed notification of the result from Election Commission officials who arrived here late in the evening, Raj Bhavan sources said. The Congress suffered a big erosion in its seat share while the Mizo National Front, a part of the Bjp-led North-east Democratic Alliance, cashed in on the anti-incumbency against the national party after 10 years in power

Number of seats Congress

35 30