Election results: Vasundhara Raje-led BJP trounces Congress in Rajasthan
2 min read . Updated: 08 Dec 2013, 09:38 PM IST
PremiumBJP wins record 160 seats in state assembly; Congress gets 23; Ashok Gehlot resigns as chief minister
New Delhi: The assembly election trends in Rajasthan indicates the state has followed its past history of not repeating a government in the state, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) winning 160 seats and the Congress winning 23. The Bahujan Samajwadi Party (three) and others (13) round up to the 199 seats that went to polls. For the last two decades, since 1993, no political party has come back to form government in Rajasthan.
The BJP broke the record of the Congress party’s performance of 1998 assembly elections when the latter’s won 153 seats with a vote share of 44.95%.
Soon after it became clear that the BJP is heading towards a landslide victory in Rajasthan on Sunday, Vasundhara Raje acknowledged that the performance of the party was because of the Modi wave in the state. “Modi wave has played a decisive role in Rajasthan assembly election," Raje told media on the basis of the leads in assembly election. BJP also put up a good show in the crucial Mewar region. There are about eight districts in the region.
Later in the day, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot tonight resigned after the Congress was dislodged from power in the state but said his party would continue to work for welfare of the people. The Congress would analyze factors that led to party’s drubbing in the state, he told reporters after submitting his resignation to Governor Margaret Alva.
“I humbly accept defeat and congratulate the winners. We will continue to work for welfare of the people and play a positive role," Gehlot said. “We will analyze what went wrong," he said. Despite carrying out tremendous development, “we lost and this is a matter of analysis", the outgoing chief minister said. Gehlot alleged BJP’s campaign was based on lies and they misled people during electioneering.
Sixty-year-old Raje is making a comeback in Rajasthan with a likely bigger mandate than the party’s performance in 2003, when the BJP won 120 seats with a record vote share of 39.85%. The party in 2008 lost the assembly elections, and the Congress party, led by Ashok Gehlot, formed the government. But riding high on the support of some of the prominent BJP leaders, including the party’s PM candidate Narendra Modi, Raje was yet again made the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate of Rajasthan earlier this year. The party’s central leadership also made her the president of Rajasthan unit of the BJP.
The BJP’s leads in the region indicate the Modi factor in the region as he had started his election campaign from Udaipur. The importance of Mewar region can also be understood from the fact that many members of legislative assembly (MLAs) from Gujarat had come to Mewar region to campaign for Modi and Raje.
The BJP had managed to get 39.85% vote share in Rajasthan in the 2003, which was the highest for BJP in Rajasthan. The performance of the party, in terms of vote share, was only replicated under the leadership of Bhairon Singh Shekhawat in 1993 assembly election when the BJP had received 39.19% vote share.
However, the BJP has not been able to break the record of Congress party’s performance of 1998 assembly election when the party had won 153 seats with a vote share of 44.95%.
