As Cong looks set to win, a 20-yr trend continues
Rajasthan kept up a 20-year-old trend of voting out the incumbent party on Tuesday as the challenger Congress inched towards the majority mark in the 200-member assembly with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) quite a bit behind.
According to results and trends obtained from the Election Commission website at 7.15pm, the Congress had won or was leading in 98 seats, just short of the majority mark of 101. The BJP was ahead or was leading in 74 seats. Thirteen independents were leading or had won, while the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) held on to six seats.
In the last assembly election in 2013, the BJP had won 163 seats while the Congress had won just 21.
The Congress legislature party in Rajasthan will meet Wednesday morning to discuss its leader, who will go on to be the chief minister. The two frontrunners are Rajasthan party chief Sachin Pilot and two-time chief minister Ashok Gehlot. The final decision is expected to be announced after observers sent by the All India Congress Committee to the legislators’ meeting in Jaipur return to Delhi and brief Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. In a show of unity, both Gehlot and Pilot – along with other leaders – appeared before the media, flashing victory sign.
“The Congress party offered a better alternative under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, the party president. The party fought for five years and were on streets and it is hard work of Congress leaders and workers that has pushed the party to a position that the Congress will comfortably form the government,” Pilot said.
“The Congress will form the government. This is the mandate of public,” Gehlot told reporters.
BJP spokesperson Mukesh Pareek said the party in Rajasthan had worked for all sections of the society. “Despite that, where we did wrong will be assessed after the elections. We fulfilled 95% of the promises made in 2013 and worked for development,” he said.
The elections were fought on issues of development, corruption and farm distress with both parties, but the Congress in particular, battling a large number of rebels.
The Congress managed to make major inroads in the Matsya, Shekhawati, Dhundhar and Marwar regions of the state.
The BJP fought back in the politically significant region of Mewar. In this tribal dominated region, the BJP won 20 seats while the Congress got 12. The region accounts for 35 seats in the districts of Udaipur, Chittorgarh, Bhilwara, Pratapgarh, Rajsamand, Banswara and Dungarpur.
Political analyst Narayan Bareth said that in the last five years, the people had lost faith in the BJP and that the Congress gave a new hope.
“Their promises of loan waiver, unemployment allowance made the youth support the Congress,” he said. On the other hand, he said that the Congress could have done better but was done in by faulty ticket distribution.
Political expert Prakash Bhandari felt that the BJP was able to overcome anti-incumbency due to the aggressive campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The Congress did not win the thumping majority it was hoping for,” he said.
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