GEHLOT SILENTLY STRENGTHENS PARTY, KEEPS BJP AT BAY

Jaipur: For long there has been a rhetoric created, by vested interests in Congress party and opposition, that CM Ashok Gehlot’s term doesn’t bid well for Congress in elections. However, nothing can be further from the truth. Case in point being Gehlot’s third term, wherein, he has single handedly, through his strategy and management, ‘outcasted’ the BJP.

Since the 2018 assembly elections in Rajasthan, BJP has been losing in all major elections. In Rajya Sabha elections held on 4 seats in Rajasthan recently, Congress won 3 seats while BJP could win only 1 seat. In this election, 2 seats of Congress and 1 seat of BJP were confirmed. There was competition for the fourth seat, but BJP lost to Congress in electoral strategy. BJP-backed independent candidate Subhash Chandra was defeated and cross voting also worried the party.

Now the assembly elections 2023 and Lok Sabha elections 2024 are before the BJP leadership. According to sources, some tough and big decisions can be taken by the party soon so that the situation can be rectified before the general election because in the last 4 years, a big failure of BJP has come to the fore in the elections. On the other hand, despite being the opposition party in Panchayat Raj elections, BJP made 18 district chiefs and Congress was reduced to 15 district chiefs.

In the Rajya Sabha elections held on 10 June 2022, 3 candidates of Congress won and only 1 candidate of BJP won while the BJP-backed independent candidate was defeated. Congress’s Mukul Wasnik got 42 votes, Randeep Surjewala 43 and Pramod Kumar Tiwari 41 votes, which includes 1 vote of BJP’s Shobharani Kushwaha. On the basis of this, he could win in the first preference. BJP candidate Ghanshyam Tiwari got 43 votes, while Independent candidate Dr Subhash Chandra got only 30 votes and lost.