Rajasthan Assembly polls 2023: Revolving door politics, eroding Gehlot dispensation set stage for BJP win

Rajasthan is set to hold Assembly polls for 200 seats in a single-phase election on 25 November, with the counting of votes scheduled for 3 December. The majority mark required for victory is 101 seats. Based on the pattern of Assembly election results since 1998, Rajasthan has consistently exhibited a ‘revolving door’ trend, where each incumbent government is voted out after completing its five-year term. Applying this historical trend and considering the powerful political dynamics of the BJP, along with the perceived corruption and administrative inefficiency of the ‘one-man show’ led by the incumbent Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government, it seems likely that the BJP will emerge victorious in the 2023 Rajasthan Assembly polls. BJP as a meaningful electoral alternative to Congress in Rajasthan BJP’s political victory will undoubtedly secure Rajasthan for a much-improved implementation of development plans and schemes under a ‘double engine’ government. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s double-engine metaphor transcends electoral politics and political rhetoric to the reinvention of India’s cultural ethos, ensuring streamlined development in previously neglected regions. This approach fosters all-round development, inclusivity and good governance. India has emerged as the fastest-growing major economy globally and is expected to become one of the top three economic powers in the world over the next 10-15 years. This achievement is supported by its robust democratic credentials and a mixed middle-income developing social market economy strategy. Despite three serious shocks, including the impacts of COVID-19, international tensions such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict and central banks worldwide responding with synchronised policy rate hikes to curb inflation, agencies continue to project India as the fastest-growing major economy, with a growth rate of 6.5-7.0 per cent in FY23. In its manifesto for the Rajasthan Assembly elections, the BJP has promised to provide LPG cylinders for Rs 450 each to Ujjawala scheme beneficiaries, create 2.5 lakh government jobs in five years and increase financial assistance to farmers under the PM-Kisan scheme. While releasing the ‘sankalp patra’ in Jaipur, BJP chief JP Nadda stated that if the BJP forms the government in the state, a Special Investigation Team will be formed to probe paper leaks and other alleged scams in the Congress government. The manifesto also promises the completion of the Eastern Rajasthan Canal Project (ERCP) in a time-bound manner in collaboration with the Centre. During an election rally, Prime Minister Modi stated that Rajasthan possesses the heritage of the past, the strength of the present and the possibilities of the future referring to it as a ’trishakti.’ The projects dedicated by the prime minister include tourism facilities developed at Nathdwara (Rajsamand) under the Swadesh Darshan Scheme, a modern ’tourist interpretation and cultural centre’ at Nathdwara and a permanent campus of the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in Kota, among others. Evidently, Congress lacks intra-party transparency and democracy. In the absence of party discipline and amid gross corruption by the incumbent ministers and sitting MLAs, Congress was compelled to conduct various surveys devised by poll strategist Sunil Kanugolu, the mastermind behind its victory in Karnataka. These surveys aimed to gauge the preferences of candidates and their ratings in their respective constituencies, forming the list of candidates based on the recommendations. Nevertheless, the data suggests that BJP MLAs have twice the likelihood of retaining their status as legislators compared to Congress. The data also indicates that anti-incumbency affects the poll prospects of sitting MLAs from the governing and opposition parties differently. For example, in the 2003 polls, 25 sitting BJP MLAs contested again, and 60 per cent of them, or 15, emerged victorious. In contrast, for the Congress, the figure was just 22 per cent, with 29 victories among the 134 incumbent MLAs who were in the fray. The pool of MLAs was much larger for the Congress, having won 153 seats in 1998, while the BJP was reduced to 33 – this election led to Ashok Gehlot’s first appointment as chief minister. Five years later, anti-incumbency swept the Congress away. The BJP easily crossed the majority mark with 120 seats, compared to the Congress’s 56. This pattern of a higher success rate for sitting MLAs from opposition parties holds true for this election as well. One-man show of Gehlot and a party in disarray The Ashok Gehlot-led dispensation in Rajasthan has failed on many crucial parameters, attributed to an ‘unstable and incompetent’ government, according to Union Minister Piyush Goyal. Goyal claimed that news of scams in the state government regularly dominates the headlines. Furthermore, he alleged a scam of Rs 20,000 crore in the Jal Jeevan Mission tender process, a Rs 5,000 crore scam in the IT department and instances of corruption in mining and the mid-day meal scheme. Despite the efforts of the Centre and Niti Aayog, the border areas of Rajasthan are not witnessing development due to the lack of an adequate number of government officials, the Union minister said. The BJP also alleges that the Rajasthan government is not working satisfactorily on the Central schemes, labelling it as ‘quite unfortunate’. The BJP also blames the Ashok Gehlot-led government for failing to provide safety to women in Rajasthan. In a stark political drama, MLA Rajendra Gudha was sacked from his state Cabinet ministership after making a statement about the poor state of women’s safety in the state. Gudha then retorted by attacking Chief Minister Gehlot, alleging that he is no longer in control of the state, which is leading in crimes against women. Here, Gudha questioned his own government’s effectiveness in tackling crimes against women when his colleagues were slamming the BJP government for the Manipur violence. The Congress is grappling with major intra-party feuds between two regional giants, Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot. In 2020, when Pilot staged a dissension protest against Chief Minister Gehlot with 18 MLAs, the Congress, which had lost its government in Madhya Pradesh months earlier, managed to defuse the rebellion due to the timely intervention of the Gandhi family. Pilot was subsequently removed as the deputy chief minister and state Congress president. However, relations between Pilot and Gehlot largely remained strained throughout the government’s tenure. The chief minister continued his verbal attacks on Pilot, labeling him a ‘traitor’. The internal functioning of the Congress in Rajasthan lacks coherent organisation. The block units in the state mostly operate without appointed leaders and in the state’s 33 districts, the party has appointed district presidents in only 19 units. Half of the posts in the Pradesh Congress committee are vacant. Furthermore, various district-level committees, such as the 20-point programme implementation committee, jail committee or vigilance committees, have not been constituted and neither have their heads nor members been appointed. In such an unorganised party scenario, if Gehlot thinks he can secure the electoral trophy alone, then it is a utopian self-overestimation on his part. Amidst all the intra-party mismanagement, the new avatar of Gehlot is on the online airwaves. Before the elections, Gehlot launched a massive campaign to showcase his ‘good governance’ – the central plank of his political rhetoric to retain power. Ranging from the flagship Chiranjeevi Health Insurance scheme, enacting the Right to Health Act and reviving the Old Pension Scheme for employees to the recent Minimum Guaranteed Income Bill for the entire adult population of the state, Gehlot is leaving no stone unturned to push the advertisement of his social welfare schemes to a frenzied level. He is spending huge public funds on advertising instead of ensuring proper implementation at the ground level. Having failed to capitalise on his welfaristic model in the past and in its implementation, Gehlot has, this time, enlisted the services of a PR agency – DesignBoxed – to create a publicity buzz about his schemes and the PR agency is charging a huge amount in the thousands of crores. The Punjab-based PR agency has reportedly been recommended by Karnataka’s deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar. Gehlot is using social media influencers, paying them up to Rs 5 lakh. Beyond this, there is a huge publicity blitz in mainstream media – newspapers around the country are full of Gehlot government’s achievement advertisements. Needless to say, the unprecedented ad blitz unleashed by the Gehlot government is bound to cost several thousand crores of public funds being diverted. What is starkly interesting is that neither the Congress high command nor state ministers figure anywhere in this campaign – only Gehlot is being projected as the epitome of ‘good governance’ for Rajasthan, thus staging a ‘one-man show’. Significant regional players on the fray Apart from the BJP and Congress, there are at least 78 smaller parties, such as the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP), Bharatiya Adivasi Party (BAP), Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), CPM, Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), Azad Samaj Party (ASP) and at least 38 rebel Independents in the fray. These smaller parties and Independents have the ability to tilt the balance in favour of or against either of the two major parties. Moreover, they have collectively received around 20 per cent of the votes since the 1993 polls. The RLP, headed by Jat leader Hanuman Beniwal, has fielded candidates in 81 seats, including himself from the Khinvsar constituency. Beniwal is presently the Lok Sabha MP from Nagaur. RLP will give the BJP and Congress a tough fight in some constituencies like Khinvsar, Merta, etc., both in the Scheduled Areas and 10 in the general seats. They also have strongholds in Salumbar and Khedwara. Sagwara is the centre of nine seats where the BAP, whose core issue is addressing water deficiency in the region, has fielded one woman candidate, Bhavna Gujjar, from Mandalgarh. Their primary demand is for a separate Adivasi state and water for the region, as water from the Mahi River mostly flows into Gujarat. Due to the lack of water, most people cannot engage in agriculture and migrate to Gujarat to work as laborers. Two years ago, during the Zilla Pramukh polls, the Congress supported the BJP and installed a BJP zilla pramukh, thwarting a BAP takeover. Mayawati’s BSP has put up 185 candidates this time. They garnered a 4.03 per cent vote share and won six seats in 2018, becoming the third-largest party after Congress and BJP. However, their influence is concentrated in eastern Rajasthan and SC-dominated constituencies. This time, they seem strong in Dholpur, Bari, Hindaun, Udaipurwati and Sadulpur constituencies. The CPM will be fighting for 17 seats and they appear to be giving competition in at least four seats, namely Dungargarh, Bhadra, Dhond and Dantaramgarh. The CPM had won two seats in the 2018 polls. Additionally, there are independent candidates who can be troublesome for the two major parties in at least 38 seats. These parties can transcend their regional existence through electoral cooperation with the BJP along with achieving their regional political targets. With a strong Hindutva overtone and economic development as its core strategy, the BJP, aided by the ‘Modi Magic,’ is poised to regain the revolving electoral door to its side. The author is a senior faculty in the Department of History, ARSD College, University of Delhi. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. 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