Barely five months after suffering a serious setback in the Lok Sabha elections, the ruling BJP has swept the Rajasthan bypolls, winning five of the seven assembly seats that were up for grabs. In sharp contrast, the Congress was trounced badly and could win just one of the four seats it held. Worse, Congress candidates came third in four seats and party candidates on the Chorasi and Khinwsar seats even lost their deposits!
What has brought about this turnaround in Rajasthan?
The ruling BJP, led by Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma, increased its tally from one to five seats in the bypolls battle. With the BJP losing 11 Lok Sabha seats it held in the summer, he was under immense pressure and the bypolls were seen as a litmus test of his government’s performance and his leadership.
Besides executing an effective strategy and campaigning vigorously, Bhajan ensured proper candidate selection. Also, he and state BJP chief Madan Rathore worked in sync and ensured that the party presented a united front.
The duo managed to get party rebels to withdraw on several seats like Ramgarh, Jhunjhunu, Deoli-Uniyara and Salumbar which could have dented BJP prospects; instead, with the rebels pacified, the BJP won all these seats. The Bhajan-Madan combo worked in such harmony that for the first time in years, the deep rifts in the Rajasthan BJP were hardly visible in these bypolls.
With the BJP central leadership staying away and former CM Vasundhara Raje skipping these bypolls, the results are a big boost to CM Bhajan Lal. For months, Congress leaders had derided his government as a ‘parchi sarkar’ that was being run from Delhi.
Even detractors in the BJP have questioned Bhajan’s leadership ever since the debutant MLA was chosen CM last December. Doubts over his command had deepened after the Lok Sabha setback. But the impressive bypoll gains will also help to neutralise the possible challenge to Bhajan from Raje at least for the foreseeable future, if not permanently.
On the other hand, as it fumbles for an explanation for its debacle, the grand old party, which contested solo, needs to introspect on why and how it allowed the INDIA bloc to crumble so soon after the Lok Sabha success in Rajasthan.
Just how badly the INDIA break-up affected the opposition can be seen from the Salumbar constituency, the only seat the BJP held. With the Congress and the tribal party, the BAP, both raising candidates, the BJP’s Shanta Amrit Lal Meena won the Salumbar seat by a narrow margin of 1,285 votes. She secured 84,428 votes and defeated her nearest rival from the BAP Jitesh Katara, who got 83,143 votes. Though Congress candidate Reshma Meena stood third, she polled 26,760 votes.
Had the Congress-BAP fought unitedly, the BJP could well have suffered an embarrassing loss.
The story was largely similar in Khinwsar, the one seat where the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) and its president Hanuman Beniwal needed Congress support. But with RLP-Congress fielding separate candidates, it’s the BJP that emerged victorious. Hanuman’s wife Kanika lost to BJP’s Rewant Ram by over 13,000 votes and the Congress finished a distant third.
Far from nourishing its bonds with Beniwal created in the Lok Sabha battle, the Congress verily handed this vital Jat belt seat on a platter to the BJP. With the RLP losing Khinwsar for the first time since 2008, if a miffed Beniwal rejoins the BJP camp, the Congress may well rue its alliance miscalculations!
Beyond coalition complexities, frictions within the party prevented the Congress from putting up a united front. The deep rift between former CM Ashok Gehlot and his arch-rival Sachin Pilot rages on and weakened the party's ability to project a cohesive image. As both the biggies served as observers in Maharashtra, the Congress suffered from a leadership vacuum in these bypolls.
With state Congress Chief Govind Singh Dotasra calling the shots, the party was not only hampered by factionalism but also by poor candidate selection. Both the dynasts fielded by the party were defeated.
In Jhunjhunu, Amit Ola, son of Lok Sabha MP Brijendra Ola and grandson of Congress stalwart Sis Ram Ola, was trounced by BJP’s Rajendra Bhamboo by a margin of 42,848 votes. This massive defeat in a seat considered a pocket borough of the Ola family for the past five decades is a major shock for the Congress party. The other dynast, Aryan Khan, the son of late Congress leader Zubair Khan, lost to BJP’s Sukhwant Singh by over 13,000 votes in the Ramgarh seat.
The Congress also failed to tackle the problems posed by its rebel leaders which became obvious in the Deoli-Uniara constituency where rebel Naresh Meena, who hit the headlines for slapping a government official on polling day, stood second. The BJP’s Rajendra Gurjar won the seat but the official Congress candidate K C Meena came a poor third, polling less than half of the nearly 60,000 votes that Naresh Meena secured which raises grave questions over the selection process by the Congress.
The sole solace for the Congress came from Dausa where party candidate Deen Dayal Bairwa won by defeating BJP’s Jagmohan Meena, brother of Minister Kirori Lal Meena. Dausa has been a Congress bastion since the times of Rajesh Pilot in the 1980s. Many had billed the Dausa contest as a battle between BJP’s Cabinet Minister Kirori and former deputy CM Sachin Pilot who still has significant influence in the region. Despite a partial recount, the BJP lost the high-stakes clash in Dausa by 2,300 votes.
Ironically, Kirori’s setback may help the BJP resolve a major leadership headache. Ever since he was ignored as CM and not even given the deputy CM post last year, he has often caused embarrassment for the Bhajan government and the party. The BJP fielded Meena’s brother Jagmohan to pacify the tribal strongman. But the Dausa loss has now diminished Kirori’s stature whose resignation from the Bhajan government has been pending since June.
In contrast, given yesterday's hammering, the Congress party needs to confront its own leadership dilemmas. After the Lok Sabha success, state chief Govind Dotasra's stock had risen sky-high. A victory in the four seats the Congress held would have enhanced Dotasra's standing but the losses in key seats now raise questions over his leadership.
The Dausa win is a gain for Sachin Pilot even as Dotasara has stumbled badly. It's unclear how the Congress high command will view the poor performance in the bypolls. But with panchayat and urban local body polls in Rajasthan forthcoming, time is rapidly running out for the Congress.
Overall, the Congress failed to strike a balance between party priorities and keeping its INDIA bloc together in Rajasthan. The decision to contest all seven seats ignoring its allies and the rifts within the Congress has clearly proved costly. Time will tell how long the party will take to recover from this shock and be an effective Opposition in Rajasthan.
(The author is a veteran journalist and expert on Rajasthan politics. Besides serving as a Resident Editor at NDTV, he has been a Professor of Journalism at the University of Rajasthan in Jaipur. He tweets at @rajanmahan. This is an opinion article and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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