BJP’s hat-trick dreams shattered in Rajasthan as voters prioritise bread-and-butter issues

The Congress-led INDIA bloc cut into the saffron party’s vote bank substantially by foregrounding unemployment, inflation, and farmers’ concerns.

Rajasthan Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasra (third from left) celebrates the party’s gain with Congress leaders during the counting of votes on June 4. | Photo Credit: PTI

Rajasthan was among the States in the Hindi belt that threw up a surprise when the Lok Sabha election results were declared. Flush with its victory in the Assembly election barely six months ago, the BJP was confident of winning the majority of the 25 seats as it had done in 2014 and 2019. Yet, this time, despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi and prominent BJP leaders steering the campaign, the party could secure only 14 seats, conceding the rest to the Congress-led opposition. Proving all allegations of being a spent force wrong, a united and determined Congress won in straight fights in eight seats, while its alliance partners, the CPI(M), the Rashtriya Loktanktrik Party (RLP), and the Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP), won one seat each.

Interestingly, in the Banswara constituency, where Modi had stirred up controversy by calling Muslims “infiltrators” in an attempt to polarise the electorate, Rajkumar Roat, representing the relatively new BAP, emerged victorious. The BAP, though not formally a part of the INDIA bloc, had an “understanding” with the Congress on some of the seats representing a largely tribal population.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which contested in all the seats, was nowhere in the reckoning. It could not get even 1 per cent of the vote share. The cumulative vote share stood at 49.24 per cent for the BJP; 37.91 per cent for the Congress; 1.97 per cent, CPI(M); and 1.80 per cent, RLP. In the past 10 years, the BJP has been a strong presence in Rajasthan. It swept all the 25 parliamentary seats in 2014, but in 2019, it got 24 seats, with the remaining seat going to the RLP. In 2024, the BJP contested alone from all the 25 constituencies.

Decline in BJP’s vote

It is important to note that not only did the number of seats for the BJP come down in 2024, but there was also a perceptible decline in its vote share compared to the two previous Lok Sabha elections. The 49.24 per cent it won in 2024 is much lower than the 59.07 per cent it secured in 2019, and the 55.61 per cent it got in 2014. On the other hand, the Congress-led INDIA bloc secured 41.68 per cent of the vote share in 2024 whereas in the previous two Lok Sabha elections its vote shares were below 35 per cent.

The other important feature is that the difference in the vote shares between the Congress and the BJP in the last two Assembly elections was nominal. In 2018, the difference was 0.5 per cent, and in 2023, it was around 2.2 per cent.

Prominent names to lose from the BJP include former MP Kailash Choudhary from Barmer, Paralympian Devendra Jhajharia from Churu, former MLA Shubhkaran Chaudhary from Jhunjhunu, Jyoti Mirdha from Nagaur, and sitting MPs Swami Sumedhanand from Sikar and Sukhbir Singh Jaunapuria from Tonk-Sawai Madhopur. Prominent names from the Congress to bite the dust were former Union Minister C.P. Joshi from Bhilwara, former State Minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas from Jaipur, and Vaibhav Gehlot from Jalore.

The BJP candidates who won include Bhupender Yadav from Alwar, Arjun Meghwal from Bikaner, Om Birla from Kota, Dushyant Singh from Jhalawar, and party president Chandra Prakash Joshi from Chittorgarh. The lowest victory margin, 1,615 votes, was recorded in Jaipur Rural, where Rao Rajendra Singh of the BJP defeated the Congress nominee, Anil Chopra.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma and BJP candidate from Jaipur Rural, Rao Rajendra Singh (right), during a public meeting ahead of the Lok Sabha election, at Kotputli in Jaipur, on April 2, 2024. | Photo Credit: PTI

The highest margin was secured by BJP nominee and first-time contestant Mahima Kumari Mewar from Rajsamand. In 2019, this seat was won by Diya Kumari, who is now one of the two Deputy Chief Ministers of Rajasthan. Mahima Kumari Mewar’s husband, Vishvaraj Singh Mewar, is the sitting MLA from Nathdwara.

Other than Mahima Kumari, two other women were elected from Rajasthan: the BJP nominee Manju Sharma from Jaipur and the Congress nominee Sanjana Jatav from Bharatpur. Twenty-five-year-old Sanjana Jatav is the youngest woman MP in the new Lok Sabha. Securing 51.2 per cent of the votes, she defeated former MP and sangh loyalist Ramswaroop Koli, who was last elected to the Lok Sabha from the reserved constituency of Dholpur-Bayana in 2004.

Highlights

• The BJP was expecting to sweep Rajasthan, but ended up winning only 14 out of 25 seats, with the Congress-led INDIA bloc making significant gains by winning 11 seats.
• Voters seemed to reject the BJP’s polarising rhetoric and campaigns aimed at religious consolidation, instead prioritising issues like unemployment, inflation, and farmers’ concerns.
• The Congress put up a united front this time and also benefited from resentment among some communities over the BJP sidelining leaders like Vasundhara Raje.

Congress put up a good fight

Before the 2024 election took off, some Congress workers and leaders believed only half-heartedly that the party could break the 10-year jinx and make some inroads in the 25 seats held by the BJP since 2014. Infighting was at its peak but the party put up a semblance of unity. Many senior leaders like Ashok Gehlot, the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Govind Singh Dotasra, and Sachin Pilot were reluctant to throw in their hat.

Reportedly, Pratap Singh Khachariyawas, the Congress’ choice for the Jaipur seat, did not want to fight after tasting defeat in the 2023 Assembly election. There were legitimate apprehensions, premised on the Congress’ rout in the recent Assembly election, that winning all 25 seats was near impossible. That they would almost touch the half-way mark was not foreseen by anyone.

But as the narrow vote margin shows, the Congress did not perform all that badly in the Assembly election. Congress sources told Frontline that there was no reason why the party could not field leaders like Pilot, Dotasra, Harendra Mirdha, or Gehlot. “They were all winnable candidates. Even if they had lost, they would have retained their seats in the Assembly as they are all MLAs,” Congress sources said.

It was also felt that organisationally the party did not put in the kind of effort it needed for a Lok Sabha election. “A fancy war room does not make up for the lack of organisational work. During the Assembly election, there was constant monitoring and micromanaging. We were on our toes all the time. This time, there was no social media back-up, press backup, only a grand air-conditioned war room in Jaipur. It was as if not the Congress, but the constituency was pitched against the BJP,” said the sources.

Former Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje, poses for a selfie with young BJP workers in Jaipur following leads for the party in the Assembly election in December 2023. Discontent has been brewing among party workers following the sidelining of Raje. | Photo Credit: DEEPAK SHARMA/ AP

The assessment is that all communities, especially Muslims, voted in favour of the Congress. Jats turned out in large numbers to vote for Sanjana Jatav in Bharatpur. “The sidelining of former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje by the BJP helped us,” Congress sources said.

People’s issues

The BJP, buoyant with its victory in the Assembly election, was confident of winning all 25 seats and achieving a hat-trick. But exhaustion and factionalism were plaguing it as well. Besides, there were murmurs of discontent over the sidelining of certain caste groups and leaders like Raje, who command a lot of respect from party workers across the State. Sensing anti-incumbency, the BJP had replaced incumbent MPs with new faces in more than 55 per cent of the seats. Many of the new candidates were Congress dissidents, a fact resented by the rank and file of the party.

“The issues of farmers, implications of the Agniveer scheme, harassment of women wrestlers, in addition to inflation and unemployment, played a big role in this election,” said Amra Ram, the newly elected CPI(M) MP from Sikar and farmer leader.

Newly elected Bharat Adivasi Party MP Rajkumar Roat during his Lok Sabha election campaign in Banswara district. | Photo Credit: The Hindu Archives

The INDIA bloc constituents campaigned hard on “people’s issues,” he pointed out. “The polarising language of BJP leaders had little effect, whereas there were apprehensions among the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the Meenas in particular, that the Constitution would be altered and reservation for them would be taken away. Safeguarding the Constitution, a campaign issue of the Congress, struck a positive chord,” Amra Ram added.

In southern Rajasthan, however, where the BAP made inroads, the issues were very different. The demand for a Bhil Pradesh and the development of tribal areas were the dominant concerns here, and the BAP focussed on these in its campaign.

The strength of the BJP and the INDIA bloc constituents is likely to be tested again soon in the panchayati raj election, scheduled to be held in January 2025. Congress leaders believe that the party needs to keep an eye on some of the newly elected MPs, especially those who left the BJP and joined the Congress.

The BJP won the maximum number of seats, but it was not a clean sweep by any measure. Following the results, some changes are expected in the BJP’s State leadership. For now, it has realised the limitations of its polarising rhetoric and of attempting a reverse consolidation on religious lines.