The 200-member assembly is witnessing a bilateral fight between the
ruling BJP and the Congress, in a state that has alternated between the
two every five years for the last two decades.
BJP has fielded candidates in all 200 constituencies, with 23 being women while 27 of the 195 Congress nominees are female.
More than 74% of the eligible 4.74 crore voters exercised their franchise on Dec 07,2018 to elect representatives from a list of 2,274 candidates.
With odds stacked heavily against chief minister Vasundhara Raje, the campaign had been intense with both the parties raising issues such as construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya, caste of Hindu god Hanuman, caste and family of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, apart from farm and water crisis, jobs, reservation to certain castes, inaccessibility of Raje and her cabinet colleagues.
Although Congress has been predicted to comfortably cross the 101-majority mark, it has not announced a candidate for chief minister and has fielded both its top leaders ex-CM Ashok Gehlot and state party president Sachin Pilot.
The results will seal the fates of 2274 candidates who contested the elections in Rajasthan. Due to the death of one candidate, elections were countermanded in one seat, effectively making it an election for 199 seats. To form a government in the state, any party will need to win 100 seats.
The Congress looks set to wrest Rajasthan from the BJP and has crossed
the halfway mark in the state. Celebrations have already begun outside
party leader Sachin Pilot's house. The party's two chief ministerial
candidates - Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot - are leading from their
seats of Sardarpura and Tonk respectively, while BJP's Vasundhara Raje
is leading from Jhalrapatan.
11 out of 14 ministers in Vasundhara Raje's cabinet are trailing in their respective seats.
In 2013, the BJP got 163 seats and a vote share of 46.03%, a jump of about eight percentage points since 2008. The Congress bagged 21 seats with a vote share of 34.27%, a fall of a meagre two percentage points.
The BJP had eaten into the votes of smaller parties and independents, whose vote share shrank by eight percentage points to 20.29%.
1)Agrarian Crisis
More than half (53 per cent) of all households in Rajasthan own agricultural land with farm income either the sole or an important constituent of income. Rising agricultural input costs, falling profits and poor market infrastructure remain a problem for farmers, who have a lot to complain against the incumbent government. Demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax still haunt farmers. Besides, the issue of minimum support price (MSP) has triggered anger against BJP with farmers complaining that they either sold crops below the MSP or could never sell at all.
The Congress has capitalised on farmer distress in the state and targeted the Raje government over its policies.
2)Anti-incumbency
The BJP is fighting the double anti-incumbency of five years of Raje’s rule and four-and-a half years of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre. Most pre-poll surveys had predicted an easy win for the Congress. Unlike counterparts Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh and Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh, Raje does not have a history of consecutive wins. The BJP’s 2013 sweep was largely attributed to a strong public sentiment against the 10-year Congress rule at the Centre and a pan-India wave of Modi, who had already been appointed the chairman of BJP’s poll campaign committee for 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
The Congress targeted the BJP’s failures in the state by releasing an ‘Arop Patra’, a manifesto of allegations against the government which listed the BJP’s major failures in agriculture, employment, women’s safety, education and loan waivers among others.
3) Caste Mobilisation
Caste equations have always played a big role in Rajasthan even influencing who would be the chief minister. In the past five years, the BJP government somehow managed to antagonise the influential Rajputs.
The community was peeved at the encounter of Rajput ‘Robin Hood’ and history-sheeter Anandpal Singh Didwana, the controversial’ movie Padmaavat, denial of state party president post to Rajput leader Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and the treatment meted out to senior leader Jaswant Singh.
Jaswant’s son Manvendra, who has become the face of Rajput anger in the state, quit the BJP in September. Subsequently, he joined the Congress saying, “Kamal ka phool, meri bhool.” Pitted against Raje in Jhalrapatan, he faces an uphill task to dismantle the CM from her fortress despite mobilizing Rajputs and uniting various groups within the community against the BJP.
4)Public perception of Raje
This is Raje’s second term as CM, but she has failed to win hearts and minds of the public, which sees her as arrogant and inaccessible even in her Cabinet. She has not done much to change that perception.
In fact, a famous slogan ahead of elections was ‘Modi se bair nahi, raani ki khair nahi’ (Don’t have a problem with Modi, but Raje’s rule is under threat).
BJP has fielded candidates in all 200 constituencies, with 23 being women while 27 of the 195 Congress nominees are female.
More than 74% of the eligible 4.74 crore voters exercised their franchise on Dec 07,2018 to elect representatives from a list of 2,274 candidates.
With odds stacked heavily against chief minister Vasundhara Raje, the campaign had been intense with both the parties raising issues such as construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya, caste of Hindu god Hanuman, caste and family of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, apart from farm and water crisis, jobs, reservation to certain castes, inaccessibility of Raje and her cabinet colleagues.
Although Congress has been predicted to comfortably cross the 101-majority mark, it has not announced a candidate for chief minister and has fielded both its top leaders ex-CM Ashok Gehlot and state party president Sachin Pilot.
The results will seal the fates of 2274 candidates who contested the elections in Rajasthan. Due to the death of one candidate, elections were countermanded in one seat, effectively making it an election for 199 seats. To form a government in the state, any party will need to win 100 seats.
11 out of 14 ministers in Vasundhara Raje's cabinet are trailing in their respective seats.
In 2013, the BJP got 163 seats and a vote share of 46.03%, a jump of about eight percentage points since 2008. The Congress bagged 21 seats with a vote share of 34.27%, a fall of a meagre two percentage points.
The BJP had eaten into the votes of smaller parties and independents, whose vote share shrank by eight percentage points to 20.29%.
Here's How Congress Trumped BJP to Romp Back to Power in Rajasthan
More than half (53 per cent) of all households in Rajasthan own agricultural land with farm income either the sole or an important constituent of income. Rising agricultural input costs, falling profits and poor market infrastructure remain a problem for farmers, who have a lot to complain against the incumbent government. Demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax still haunt farmers. Besides, the issue of minimum support price (MSP) has triggered anger against BJP with farmers complaining that they either sold crops below the MSP or could never sell at all.
The Congress has capitalised on farmer distress in the state and targeted the Raje government over its policies.
2)Anti-incumbency
The BJP is fighting the double anti-incumbency of five years of Raje’s rule and four-and-a half years of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre. Most pre-poll surveys had predicted an easy win for the Congress. Unlike counterparts Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh and Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh, Raje does not have a history of consecutive wins. The BJP’s 2013 sweep was largely attributed to a strong public sentiment against the 10-year Congress rule at the Centre and a pan-India wave of Modi, who had already been appointed the chairman of BJP’s poll campaign committee for 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
The Congress targeted the BJP’s failures in the state by releasing an ‘Arop Patra’, a manifesto of allegations against the government which listed the BJP’s major failures in agriculture, employment, women’s safety, education and loan waivers among others.
3) Caste Mobilisation
Caste equations have always played a big role in Rajasthan even influencing who would be the chief minister. In the past five years, the BJP government somehow managed to antagonise the influential Rajputs.
The community was peeved at the encounter of Rajput ‘Robin Hood’ and history-sheeter Anandpal Singh Didwana, the controversial’ movie Padmaavat, denial of state party president post to Rajput leader Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and the treatment meted out to senior leader Jaswant Singh.
Jaswant’s son Manvendra, who has become the face of Rajput anger in the state, quit the BJP in September. Subsequently, he joined the Congress saying, “Kamal ka phool, meri bhool.” Pitted against Raje in Jhalrapatan, he faces an uphill task to dismantle the CM from her fortress despite mobilizing Rajputs and uniting various groups within the community against the BJP.
4)Public perception of Raje
This is Raje’s second term as CM, but she has failed to win hearts and minds of the public, which sees her as arrogant and inaccessible even in her Cabinet. She has not done much to change that perception.
In fact, a famous slogan ahead of elections was ‘Modi se bair nahi, raani ki khair nahi’ (Don’t have a problem with Modi, but Raje’s rule is under threat).
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