New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is set to return to power in Rajasthan, leading in over 110 out of 199 seats that went to polls. The Congress is leading in around 70 seats as of 1 pm. While the counting is still on, the gap between the two parties looks too big to be reversed. This marks continuity in the three-decade-old trend of voters in the desert state changing governments every five years.
It marks a big turnaround in the fortunes of the party, which had looked to be faction-ridden and struggling to counter the Ashok Gehlot-led government’s welfarist agenda.
For the BJP, snatching Rajasthan from the hand of a resurgent Congress is significant not only in terms of the electoral calculus — the state has 25 Lok Sabha seats, 24 of which the BJP currently holds and hopes to retain — but also in that it was able to overcome Ashok Gehlot, who had built up an image as a strong chief minister, putting Sachin Pilot’s 2020 rebellion behind him and offering a welfare model that seemed more competitive than those in other Congress-ruled states.
With an intense campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a meticulously planned strategy, the BJP has turned things around in a hard-fought contest.
In the past year, it capitalised on anti-incumbency against the Gehlot government and against Congress MLAs in particular, and built a narrative of the state being beset by rampant crimes against women, recruitment exam paper leaks, unemployment and corruption.
Since Gehlot’s welfare schemes were a potent balancing instrument against the BJP, the latter highlighted allegedly huge corruption in the delivery of these schemes.
With its vote share in 2018 having been only a fraction behind that of the Congress despite the difference in the number of seats won — 38.8 percent and 73 seats compared to 39.3 percent and 99 seats — the BJP’s task wasn’t difficult this time. The only hindrance was the lack of cohesion in its organisation and infighting in the Rajasthan unit. The party thus moved step by step to bring about cohesion, and addressed the leadership issue by fighting as a unit and declaring any chief ministerial face.
Also read: From welfarism in MP & Chhattisgarh to Hindutva in Rajasthan — why BJP has changed its poll strategy
Collective leadership to bring about cohesion
The first step the BJP leadership took to stem infighting was in March this year, when it appointed C.P. Joshi — a leader not associated with any particular faction — as its Rajasthan president, removing Satish Poonia. Poonia is known to have a fraught relationship with former chief minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia and removed several of her loyalists from organisational positions during his tenure.
At the same time, the high command asked every faction to make it clear that no chief ministerial face would be projected and that the party would fight the elections collectively. It also ensured that Raje — one of the party’s most popular leaders, with a high recall value among the people — wasn’t sidelined, and was publicly honoured. It is learnt that Home Minister Amit Shah himself ensured that she gave speeches at several meetings despite the state leadership’s reluctance to give prominence to the former chief minister.
Most of Raje’s loyalists were also accommodated in the BJP’s second list despite the reluctance and even opposition of Leader of the Opposition Rajendra Rathore and others. Raje, too, sensed the tricky situation and campaigned in over 50 assembly constituencies — more than any other state leader — to maintain her prospect of becoming chief minister.
The strategy worked, with all leaders working to their own regions to turn the tide against Gehlot collectively.
Modi’s personal guarantee
Modi had earlier ridiculed the growing revdi or ‘freebie’ culture in Indian politics, deriding the Congress’s guarantees in Karnataka and even talking about the issue in Parliament.
However, several surveys done by the BJP found that people were voting on the basis of day-to-day economic issues, and that the Congress’s promised welfare schemes in Himachal and Karnataka had been important factors in its victories.
Thus, the BJP went into this round of elections armed with a number of welfare schemes, both existing ones — such as Madhya Pradesh’s Ladli Behna Yojana, announced in March this year — and manifesto promises such as annual financial assistance for women in Chhattisgarh, as well as sops for young people and farmers.
The prime minister also deployed his personal credentials, offering a ‘Modi guarantee’ to differentiate the BJP’s welfare schemes from those of the Congress. Addressing a rally in Rajasthan, Modi said, “Where hope from the Congress ends, from there Modi’s guarantees start.”
Not only did he campaign across the election-bound states, Modi also directly sought votes in his name without projecting leaders in any state, making the polls a referendum on the credibility of the Modi brand. This may have helped the party beat local infighting and galvanised people to vote for Modi instead of weighing up the local candidates.
A Rajasthan BJP functionary told ThePrint that “this was the first election where PM Modi directly asked voters to vote for him and this changed the game. His personal credentials are much stronger than any other leader and voters forget our shortcomings in campaigning or choosing candidates.”
Also read: ‘Haathi ke daant’ — former Rajasthan BJP chief Satish Poonia on Gehlot-Pilot show of unity
Anti-incumbency and the right messaging
During Poonia’s tenure as state chief, the BJP lost several by-elections but the party did not lose a single opportunity to build a narrative of lawlessness in the state. Udaipur is aBJP stronghold but when a tailor, Kanhaiya Lal Teli, was murdered by two Muslim men in 2022, the party projected the murder case as a symbol of lawlessness and minority appeasement across the state. Leaders including Modi and Shah continuously attacked Gehlot over alleged minority appeasement.
Then, there was the issue of recruitment exam papers being leaked, which the BJP used to target the youth constituency. Rajya Sabha MP Kirodi Lal Meena and the state leadership launched several protests over the issue. Raje had lent her support to Meena when he sat on a hunger strike earlier this year.
The BJP brought these issues, from paper leaks to crimes against women to unemployment, together during a street protest in September — ‘Nahi Sahega Rajasthan’ — to build a unified narrative and take advantage of anti-incumbency.
Since Rajasthan has a trend of electing a different government every five years, the BJP’s only real fear was a last-minute welfare scheme-based push by Gehlot, but the CM lost that advantage by retaining most of his sitting MLAs, who became a boon for the BJP due to the strong sentiment against many of them on the ground.
East Rajasthan and Gurjar support
In 2018, the Gurjar community was seen to back the Congress, rallying together with the Meenas behind then state chief Sachin Pilot, to make him chief minister. Eight of the Congress’s Gurjar candidates won, with the party securing a total of 25 seats in eastern Rajasthan. The BJP was reduced to three seats in the region, with the rest going to Independents and the BSP, who later supported the Congress.
This time, the BJP had worked on a multi-pronged plan for a while to get back Gurjar votes, as seen in Prime Minister Narendra’s recurring assertion of the Congress humiliating Rajesh and Sachin Pilot in rally after rally. It not only inducted several Gurjar leaders into the organisation, but kept the issue of Pilot’s “humiliation” alive in the Gurjar belt to wean voters from the community away from the Congress.
State BJP leaders have followed Modi’s cue; for example, Sukhbir Singh Jaunapuria, the two-time MP from Tonk-Sawai Madhopur, said that Pilot had “no chance of becoming chief minister since Gehlot would never allow it”.
Winning women’s trust
Targeting women voters, the party also continuously attacked the Gehlot government over crimes against women. With Rajasthan reporting the greatest number of rape cases according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) 2021 statistics, BJP leaders including UP CM Yogi Adityanath kept on attacking Gehlot over the issue of women’s safety to polarise women. The prime minister said at a number of rallies that the “Congress has made Rajasthan one in crimes against women. The CM says that the complaints filed by the women are fake. Can it ever happen that a woman in our country files a fake case?”
In Bhilwara, where a 14-year-old girl was raped and murdered in August, the BJP fielded several leaders to raise the issue of atrocities against women.
BJP leaders also said that since Gehlot’s welfare schemes were one factor it had to dent, it focussed on women and young people in rural Rajasthan. It made manifesto promises including the ‘Lado Protsahan’ scheme — a Rs 2 lakh savings bond for every daughter born to a household — a ‘women’s police station’ in every district and a ‘women’s desk’ at every police station. It also promised ‘anti-Romeo’ squads in all major cities, as well as pink buses and a police battalion.
Since Rajasthan has low piped water connectivity and it’s mainly women who suffer as a result of this, the BJP focussed on that faultline, too, to target women’s votes.
Also read: BJP’s Rajasthan manifesto: Anti-Romeo squads, ‘freebies’ & wheat procurement at ‘bonus’ prices