New Delhi: The Congress has snatched over three lakh votes from the BJP in two Lok Sabha constituencies of Rajasthan in less than 1,300 days, encouraging the Opposition party's leaders to chant: " Pehle Rajasthan, uske baad Hindustan."
The Congress won both Lok Sabha seats and the lone Assembly constituency where by-elections were held and whose results were announced on Thursday.
When Narendra Modi rode to power in 2014, the BJP had polled 12,80,152 votes in the Ajmer and Alwar parliamentary constituencies. The figure has been whittled down by over three lakh votes now, signalling resentment on the ground.
Rajasthan, like Gujarat, had given the BJP a clean sweep in the 2014 parliamentary polls. The Congress failed to win even one of the 25 seats in the desert state and the vote-share gap was 25 per cent. Even in the Assembly elections in 2013, the BJP had won 163 seats in Rajasthan and the Congress 21.
The results in Alwar and Ajmer on Thursday suggested the tide might be turning around nine months before the Assembly elections in Rajasthan and 14 months before the big parliamentary battle.
The Congress saw in this a general change of mood on the ground as its main leaders from the two seats - Sachin Pilot and Jitendra Singh - didn't contest. It appeared the voters wanted to teach the BJP a lesson irrespective of the candidates.
While Karan Singh Yadav won Ajmer by a margin of over 1.96 lakh votes, Raghu Sharma wrested Alwar by 84,000 votes. In the Mandalgarh Assembly bypoll, the Congress won by a margin of 12,976 votes.
Rajasthan, along with Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, will vote later this year and the outcome will more or less decide the fate of the parties in 2019. This will also bolster the Congress's claim on leadership of the Opposition ranks.
While it is clear that the Vasundhara Raje government is facing strong anti-incumbency, the Congress is in a position to exploit the situation because of the presence of strong local leaders.
Unlike Gujarat, where there was no one who could be projected as the chief ministerial face, in Rajasthan the Congress has the veteran Ashok Gehlot and state unit chief Pilot.
An ecstatic Rahul Gandhi said he was proud of the team in Rajasthan.
Gehlot tweeted: "The countdown for the BJP at the national level has begun."
Pilot said: "People have given their blessings to the Congress and have rejected the Raje government and its policies. Young people have realised that the politics of polarisation doesn't work."
