NEW DELHI: About six months ago in December 2023, the results of Rajasthan Legislative Assembly elections were announced in which BJP secured 115 out of 200 seats, making first-time legislator Bhajanlal Sharma as Chief Minister in place of senior leader and ex-CM Vasundhara Raje.
Now, BJP lost 11 seats in General elections to Congress and its allies, breaking its streak of sweeping all 25 seats for the third time. In 2014, BJP won all 25 seats, and in 2019, it won 24 seats, leaving one for its ally, Rashtriya Loktantrik Party.
The election in Rajasthan seemed smooth until Congress roped in Rahul Kaswan, a two-time BJP MP from Churu, after the latter was denied a ticket by the saffron party. Kaswan is a powerful Jat leader, whose family has held the Churu Lok Sabha seat for more than two decades. During his campaigning, Kaswan made the elections in Churu appear like a Jat vs Rajput contest, as stated by various local BJP leaders. It was widely believed that senior BJP leader Rajendra Rathore, a Rajput, was instrumental in Kaswan’s not getting a ticket from the BJP because Rathore’s supporters accused Kaswan of plotting the former’s defeat in the 2023 assembly elections from Churu district’s Taranagar Assembly constituency.
Even though former Paralympian Devendra Jhajharia,BJP candidate from Churu, was a Jat himself, it was largely considered a proxy war between Rathore and Kaswan.
Out of the 11 seats BJP lost to Congress and allies, about six of them lie in the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan, dominated by Jat voters. Congress almost swept the Shekhawati region and reclaimed its fortresses in Jhunjhunu and Churu after 10 years. Brijendra Ola defeated BJP’s Shubkaran Choudhary in Jhunjhunu. CPM candidate Amraram won from Sikar; Ummed Ram Beniwal defeated Independent Ravinder Bhati, pushing BJP candidate Kailash Choudhary to third place in Jaisalmer-Barmer; and RLP’s Hanuman Beniwal from Nagaur defeated BJP’s Jyoti Mirdha. Congress did not only enjoyed Jat votes but also got SC votes, dominantly from the Meena and Meghwal communities, which hold several seats.
This includes Congress candidate Sanjana Jatav, a 25-year-old who won from Bharatpur constituency, breaking former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot’s record as the youngest MP from Rajasthan. In the assembly elections last year in December, she lost by 409 votes to a BJP candidate from the Kathumar assembly seat. Bhartiya Adivasi Party, a new player representing the tribal population, in its debut Lok Sabha election, its candidate, Rajkumar Raout won from Banswara constituency.
The major reason for the BJP losing its seat while Congress’s gained was the Jat reservation movement. The decision not to grant reservations to the Jat community for central government jobs was highly detrimental to BJP. During this time, the Jat community united under the Mission Gangajal and took an oath to not vote for BJP across nine Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan. During this period, the Jat community openly supported and campaigned for Congress in this Lok Sabha election. Several additional factors also appeared to benefit Congress. There was unrest among farmers, anger over the Agniveer scheme, and resentment over the denial of the Chief Minister or Deputy Chief Minister post to a Jat leader; furthermore, former BJP state chief Satish Poonia was also sidelined by BJP. Consequently, the opposition party found strong support in Sikar, Churu, Jhunjhunu, and Nagaur seats.
In eastern Rajasthan, the Gujjar-Meena alliance once again favoured the Congress after more than five years. While the Congress performed reasonably well in the 2023 Assembly elections in this region, it was not as dominant as in 2018, when the BJP was nearly wiped out of the area.
According to a Professor from Rajasthan University, BJP’s performance declined in the state due to the local leadership and not the central leadership. Yes, issues such as Agniveer scheme and unemployment were against BJP government but the state government also failed to take action against paper leak despite being in power for more than six months. At several places, the candidates were also repeated despite negative feedback from ground. Had there been an aggressive campaign to counter Govind Dotasra’s campaign, BJP would have improved its tally.