Rajasthan Elections 2023: Will Congress’s 'Kaam kiya dil se' or BJP’s 'Nahi sahega Rajasthan' carry the day?

Rajasthan Elections 2023: A nail-biting finish is on the cards. (File image)

Rajasthan will vote on November 25 and seal the fate of three-time Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot. No government has come back to power in Rajasthan since 1993.

See-Saw Trend

In 1993, BJP scraped through by bagging 95 seats, however it won  big in 2003 (120 seats) and an even bigger mandate of 163 seats in 2013. Congress won a massive 153 seats in 1998 after which Ashok Gehlot was installed as CM for the first time.

However, the last two victories in 2008 and 2018 were touch-and-go affairs for Congress and it formed a government with the help of Independents and BSP.

Going purely by this strong trend, it is the turn of BJP to win this time. In terms of vote share, the Congress and BJP have relatively similar support, with very close elections four out of the last six times.

Only in 1998 when Congress won 153 seats and in 2013 when BJP won 163 seats was there a big 12 percentage point gap between the two parties. In 2018, Congress led by just a 0.5 percentage point vote share.

Smaller parties like RLP, NPP, BTP, BSP and independents have had a significant role to play in Rajasthan, snaring anywhere between around 17 percent to 23 percent of vote share. Among them, BSP has an average vote share of 4 percent.

Caste Is King, No Surprises Here

Like any Hindi heartland state, caste plays a big role in Rajasthan politics. Upper castes/general category accounts for 19 percent, Hindu OBCs 39 percent, SC 18 percent, ST 13 percent, Muslims 9 percent and others 2 percent. Including Muslim OBCs, the total OBC number could be closer to 45-48 percent.

Vasundhara Raje played the caste card to the hilt calling herself daughter-in-law of Jats, daughter of Rajputs, and Samdhan of Gujjars in 2018 but it failed.

In the past, the state has witnessed violent protests related to caste-based reservation. Jats have sought inclusion in the central OBC list and Gujjars inclusion in the ST category, which Meenas have been opposing.

Five caste groups – Brahmin, Rajput, Jat, Gujjar and Meenas – account for 94 of the 200 MLAs of Rajasthan (47 percent). Today there are few anchor voting segments in the state which vote for the same party election after election. Parties can’t boast of any loyal vote bloc; caste swings are very normal in Rajasthan elections.

Five Elections Rolled Into One

For electoral analysis purposes, Rajasthan is divided into five zones - Marwar (61), Dhundhar (58), Mewar (43), Shekhawati (21) and Harouti (17). Shekhawati and Dhundhar regions display an alternating trend similar to the overall state. Mewar and Harouti are strongholds of the BJP. It's generally said that the way to Jaipur runs through Marwar.

There are 51 swing seats in Rajasthan, 47 of these are currently held by the Congress. Fourty-four seats have swung like a pendulum between Congress and BJP in the last three elections of these 51 seats. If the trend continues then Congress runs the risk of losing these seats and hence power.

There are 28 seats which BJP has won three out of three times in the last three elections of 2008, 2013, 2018 while there are only five such seats for the Congress party. The Congress hasn’t won 54 seats consecutively for the last three elections while the corresponding number for BJP is only 19. This is the reason why Congress has been struggling to breach the simple majority mark while BJP has been winning big.

There are 39 seats where the contest was very close in 2018 and the victory margin was less than equal to 5,000 votes. Seventeen of these seats were won by BJP, 14 by Congress and eight by other parties. Here we could see a close contest.

Infighting, A Cause For Concern 

Both Congress and BJP are facing factionalism. The open spat between Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot is well known, though now the party seems to have settled the dispute. The high command has assured Pilot that who will be CM will be decided after the polls.

On the other hand, former CM Vasundhara Raje is miffed at the central leadership for not declaring her as CM face with BJP deciding to contest polls under combined leadership seeking votes in the name of PM Modi.

So will the trend break or will it hold? Three states Punjab, Kerala and Tamil Nadu had exhibited a similar trend of alternating governments. In all states the trend was broken, Punjab in 2012, Tamil Nadu in 2016 and Kerala in 2021.

Gehlot’s Three-Point Plan 

Gehlot has taken a leaf from states which overturned the alternating trend and applied them in his campaign.

* Encouraging factionalism in BJP unit (Punjab lesson from Badals in 2012)

* Initiating a slew of social welfare programmes (Amma model, a lesson from TN)

* Increasing his communication and visibility (Pinarayi Vijayan model, lesson from Kerala)

On the other hand, BJP is banking on Rajasthan’s strong anti-incumbency tendency, popularity of PM Modi, and the strong party organisation to defeat Gehlot. It also hopes Congress’s leadership issues could come to a boil again, damaging the grand old party’s prospects.

Candidates, Issues And Slogans

BJP has released a list of 41 candidates. The party had won only two of these seats in 2018, and it retained one sitting MLA and dropped the other. BJP has also fielded seven MPs, four in the Dhundhar region where BJP got a drubbing winning only 10/58 seats in 2018. Kirori Lal Meena has been fielded to make an impact in the Meena belt where BJP could win only four out of 26 seats.

A few loyalists of Vasundhara Raje have been dropped which has created a furore. In 12-13 seats, BJP is facing rebellion and needs to manage the same.

The top issues in the state are unemployment, price rise and corruption. Other issues which BJP has strenuously flagged include law and order, women safety (Rajasthan tops in rapes in India), exam paper leak, welfare schemes of Gehlot, OPS implementation, communal tensions/polaristion, and transfer of teachers to home districts.

The campaign theme of Congress party is “Kaam kiya dil se, Congress fir se”. Meanwhile BJP’s campaign is on Congress’s misgovernance: “Nahi sahega Rajasthan”.

Whichever way you look at it, a nail biting finish is on the cards.

Amitabh Tiwari is a former corporate and investment banker-turned political strategist and commentator. Twitter: @politicalbaaba. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.