The Bharatiya Janata Party secured an overwhelming majority in the Rajasthan assembly elections, winning 115 constituencies out of 199 where polling was held on November 25.
The Congress led by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot was reduced to just 69 seats and 17 of its 25 ministers lost the respective constituencies. Similarly, Gehlot’s advisors, including Sanyam Lodha (Sirohi), and Babulal Nagar (Dudu) also failed to win their respective constituencies.
The saffron party had fought the assembly polls on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s face and secured 41.69 per cent votes, whereas the Congress got 39.53 percent vote share.
BAP, a new political front of the Tribal group, won in three constituencies of Dhariawad, Aspur, and Chorasi. Mayawati’s BSP won two constituencies – Sadulpur and Bari. RLD, having an alliance with the Congress, retained its seat in Bharatpur.
Hanuman Beniwal’s RLTP failed to leave any mark as Beniwal was the party’s sole winning candidate from the Khinwsar seat. The RLTP had three MLAs in the 15th Legislative Assembly. Eight Independents including a BJP rebel from Vasundhara Raje’s camp Yunus Khan also made entry into the new assembly.
Rajendra Singh Gudha, the sacked Congress minister who brought up the “Red Diary” issue, also lost his Udaipurwati seat. Gudha had contested the election on a Shiv Sena ticket and came third. Congress candidate Bhagwana Ram Saini won the seat with a narrow margin of 413 votes against BJP’s Shubhkaran Choudhary.
Besides, several top leaders of the BJP also lost their respective seats. Leader of Opposition Rajendra Rathore and his deputy Satish Punia lost in the Taranagar and Amber constituencies. BJP MP Narendra Khichad also lost to Congress party’s Rita Choudhary in Mandawa.
Following is the final party-wise tally:
- BJP – 115
- Congress – 69
- BAP – 3
- BSP – 2
- RLD – 1
- RLTP – 1
- Independents – 8
Altogether, 75.45 percent of the 5.26 crore electorate exercised their right of franchise at 51,507 polling booth stations to form the 16th Legislative Assembly in the state.
Election on one seat of Karanpur was postponed after the Congress candidate Gurmeet Kunnar’s death early this month. The polling turnout was about 0.74 percent more than the voting reported in the 2018 assembly polls.
In the last assembly poll 2018, out of 200 Legislative Assembly, the Congress had won and formed the government with 100 (with one alliance partner) MLAs, whereas BJP had 71, RLP 3, BSP 6 (who later joined the Congress in 2019), Independent 13, CPI-M and BTP 2 each.
Congress has a vote percentage of 39.30 and BJP secured 38.77 percent. The government formation by the Congress took place at a difference of 0.53 percent against the BJP.