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HomePolitics‘Shocker’, ‘writing on the wall’ is what BJP has to say about...

‘Shocker’, ‘writing on the wall’ is what BJP has to say about Rajasthan bypoll results

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A defeat in these by-elections, seen as prestige battle for both the BJP and the Congress, may weaken CM Vasundhara Raje’s position within the party.

New Delhi: Opinion in the Rajasthan BJP is divided over the bypoll results, with some calling them a “shocker” while others saying the ruling party had failed to read the “writing on the wall in time”.

Sources said a defeat in these by-elections, seen as prestige battle for both the BJP and the Congress, may weaken CM Vasundhara Raje’s position within the party.

Many in the party are of the view that the poor results are indicative of the dipping popularity of the CM in the state.

For BJP state prabhari Avinash Rai Khanna, the loss is a ‘shocker’. He said that the reasons for the loss will be looked into and analysed threadbare.

Calling the election results a “mystery”, Khanna listed the development works done by the Centre and the state government in these seats.

“We have done a lot of work in the constituencies. Even CM Vasundhara Raje had toured the constituencies along with MLAs and officials,” Khanna told ThePrint.

“I was personally monitoring the pace of the development works promised in the area. All I can say is that we have put in a lot of hard work but why we lost is still a mystery,” he added.

Some party insiders said that the loss in the bypolls is likely to haunt BJP until the assembly polls, due later this year.

The BJP’s Shakti Singh Hada lost in the Mandalgarh assembly seat, which the party had snatched from the Congress in 2013. The party is also set to lose the two Lok Sabha seats of Alwar and Ajmer won in 2014. BJP candidates Ram Swaroop Lamba and Jaswant Yadav were trailing in the Ajmer and Alwar seats respectively at the time of filing this report.

The BJP had won all the 25 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan in the 2014 general election.

While many central leaders seem to be cowering behind the budget-related TV debates, some state leaders said that the BJP failed to read into caste equations.

For the BJP state chief, the loss seems to be a result of the failure on the BJP’s part to communicate effectively about the work done by the party with the voters.

“It appears we may have failed to understand the caste equations. We will do a booth-wise analysis to understand the actual cause of our defeat,” said Ashok Parnami, Rajasthan BJP chief.

Both Khanna and Parnami, however, refuse to consider it as a trailer of the assembly polls.

They also refused to comment on whether the Rajputs’ anger against Padmaavat — the state government has recently banned the release of the movie — had anything to do with their loss in the polls.

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