Jaipur: Dealing a huge blow to BJP’s national president Amit Shah’s wish of making the party invincible in Rajasthan, the saffron party lost bypolls in two Lok Sabha seats and an Assembly constituency in Rajasthan. All three seats were previously held by the ruling party. The defeat coming just 10 months ahead of the Assembly elections is also a personal setback for Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje for whom nothing seems to have worked. She single-handedly ran the campaign; made frequent visits even before poll dates were announced, held closed door meetings with people on caste lines and went on spree to announce sops and lay foundation stones.
Yet, the ruling party not just failed to retain a single seat clearly suggesting a huge anti incumbency against her government while the Congress led by young state president Sachin Pilot has been able to use it to its advantage. What must be heartening for the 40-year-old leader is that the party known for strong rural base is now also gaining in urban areas as shown by the latest results. In Mandalgarh, the BJP candidate Shakti Singh Hada lost by nearly 13,000 votes in a three-cornered contest where rebel Con-gressman Gopal Malviya got over 40,000 votes.
In the prestigious Ajmer seat, the BJP failed to cash in on a sympathy wave as Ramswaroop Lamba lost by more than 84,000 votes just six months after his father Prof. Sanwar Lal Jat’s death who had won this seat from PCC chief Sachin Pilot by 1.71 lakh votes in 2014. Similarly, the difference between Congress candidate Dr Karan Singh Yadav and BJP’s Dr Jaswant Yadav is close to 2 lakh votes in Alwar. Bhanwar Jitendra Singh, of erstwhile royal family and a member of Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s core team, had lost to late Mahant Chandnath of the BJP by 2.83 lakh during the Modi wave. Meanwhile, Trinamul made a clean sweep in the by-elections to Uluberia Lok Sabha and Noapara Assembly seats, while BJP finished second increasing it vote share.
