Rajasthan Assembly polls: Smaller parties have an impact; hurt Congress more

Although there is a difference of just 46 seats between the BJP and Congress, the vote difference between the two parties is slightly over 2 per cent. However, these numbers do not give a clear picture of the electoral contest in the polls.

“PM Modi has got the blessing of the public. This victory is due to the trust that people have in PM Modi and his guarantees,” said Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, former union minister and parliamentarian who contested the Assembly election from Jhotwara seat in Jaipur and won.

Looking at the number of close contests between the BJP and Congress where the winning margin is fewer than 5,000, out of the 199 seats that went to polls in Rajasthan, 20 percent of the seats witnessed a tight race between the two major parties.

While the BJP managed to claim a major share of these close contests and nearly three-fourth of the total 40 seats, the Congress managed to win 10 seats of them.

“Just like Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, BJP is going to stay in Rajasthan for a long time and serve the people of the state. People across the globe have come together with PM Modi and will help him in making India a developed country. I will always work for the party,” said Mahant Balaknath, BJP MP from Alwar who also won the Assembly election from Tijara seat on Sunday (December 3).

The role of smaller parties in Rajasthan has also diminished in the 2023 Assembly polls. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) which managed to win five seats in 2018 and formed an alliance with the Congress to form government in the state was reduced to just two seats this time.

Smaller parties like the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLD) too faced defeat, and its tally came down from three in 2018 to just in this election. The only candidate who managed to win was RLP’s chief, Hanuman Beniwal, who defeated his rival by only 2,300 votes.

Political analysts believe that the BJP has momentum in Rajasthan, and the party is likely to get a similar mandate in the 2024 general elections. The BJP won all 25 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan in 2014 and 2019 general elections.

“The performance of smaller parties has come down in Rajasthan. Mayawati-led BSP was hardly present, and it could only win two seats while it won five seats in the last election. The performance of CPI and CPM has also come down, as both parties did not win a single seat this time in the Assembly elections,” said Nidhi Jain, Udaipur-based researcher at Lokniti-CSDS.

Jain also said that the presence of smaller parties like the Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP) has played the role of a disruptor because the party not only managed to win three seats in tribal areas of southern Rajasthan, but its presence has also damaged the performance of the Congress in the region.

“Winning three seats in the first election is a good beginning for the Bharat Adivasi Party. The party was contesting the election for the first time, and it contested on 22 seats. This party can pose a challenge for both the Congress and the BJP in the tribal region of Rajasthan. It seems that the Bharat Adivasi Party has damaged Congress more in this election,” Jain added.