BJP Breaks Two Family Bastions, Wins Five Of Seven Seats In Rajasthan Assembly Bypolls—Here's How It Became Possible

The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) victory on five of seven Rajasthan assembly seats that voted in the 13 November bypolls is remarkable and showcases the party's bounce back after the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

In the Lok Sabha elections, the party could not hit a hattrick of clean sweeps in Rajasthan and won only 14 of 25 seats in the state. Bad candidate selection was said to be the major reason for losses.

Learning from the mistakes, the BJP improved its candidate selection for the assembly bypolls and emerged victorious in five of seven seats, while before the seats were vacated, it had only one seat of Salumber.

The BJP not only retained its Salumber seat but also won three seats from Congress and one of Khinwsar from Hanuman Beniwal's Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP).

The Congress was able to retain only one seat of Dausa where former Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot wielded influence.

Similarly, a Congress ally in the Lok Sabha election, but contesting separately in assembly bypolls, Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP) also retained its Chorasi seat.

Let's understand the BJP's victories on five seats:

Jhunjhunu: The most challenging seat to win was Jhunjhunu because Congress's Brijendra Singh Ola had held this seat since 2008.

After getting elected to the Lok Sabha from Jhunjhunu, Ola vacated this seat and Congress fielded his son Amit Ola. However, the people appear to have rejected this dynastic politics.

Here, Independent candidate Rajendra Singh Gudha, who was in news last year for exposing then Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot's 'red diary' for alleged corruption played spoilsport for the Congress.

The margin of victory here was 42,000 votes while Gudha got 38,000 votes. He made assured BJP victory in a neck and neck contest. BJP had fielded Rajendra Singh Bhamboo, who had contested earlier as well.

Ramgarh: Breaking another family bastion, the BJP won in Ramgarh. Even the sympathy wave for the death of Congress leader Zubair Khan could not save his son Aryan Zubair.

The seat was held by Zubair's family since 2018. But here again, the people rejected dynastic politics and elected BJP's Sukhavant Singh.

Khinwsar became an easy seat for the BJP after the RLP fielded Nagaur MP Hanuman Beniwal's wife, Kanika Beniwal, a political debutant, instead of his former MLA brother, Narayan Beniwal.

Similarly, the Congress has fielded a relatively unknown Ratan Choudhary. Interestingly, she is the wife of former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer and former BJP leader Sawai Singh Choudhary, who resigned from the party soon after his wife received the Congress ticket.

This gave an edge to the BJP and its Revant Ram Danga, who had lost to Hanuman Beniwal in the 2023 assembly elections, could win this time.

Deoli-Uniara: Here two things worked for the BJP. One, it fielded former MLA Rajendra Gurjar to take advantage of the presence of the Gurjar population in the constituency.

Second, the Meena votes got divided between Congress candidate Kastoor Chand Meena and Congress rebel, Naresh Meena, who contested as an Independent and came into controversy for slapping an SDM.

Naresh Meena got higher votes than the official Congress candidate, the aide of Tonk-Sawai Madhopur MP, Harish Meena, who vacated the seat after winning in the Lok Sabha election.

Salumber was an expected victory for the BJP as it fell vacant after the death of the incumbent BJP MLA Amrit Lal Meena and the BJP fielded his wife, Shanta Devi Meena, hoping to get sympathy votes.

However, BAP's influence in the region made it a close contest and Shanta Devi Meena could win by a margin of just 1,285 votes. Congress was a distant third here.

Takeaways

These bypolls prove that BAP's influence is growing in southern Rajasthan and it can no longer be taken lightly, while the RLP is a one-man party of Hanuman Beniwal, with no other leader capable of winning elections.

For the BJP, the party appears to have settled in the post-Raje phase and appears to be thriving. Hence, questions over CM Bhajan Lal Sharma's continuation will now stop.

While only two seats from the Mewar region went for bypolls—and even these two were reserved for tribals—on the whole there is no evidence that the BJP missed the contributions of Vasundhara Raje