Rajasthan Bypolls: Congress Steals A March On BJP On Three Contested Seats

The vote count in bypolls for two parliamentary seats and one assembly seat in Rajasthan saw the Congress draw significant leads over the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on all three seats, raising questions over the BJP leadership in the state.

In the keenly contested elections for parliamentary seats in Ajmer and Alwar and an assembly seat in Mandalgarh segment, the Congress has won two of the seats and secured a comfortable lead on the third. All three seats were previously held by the BJP.

The run-up to the polls saw high-voltage campaigns by both parties, with Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje leading the BJP and Sachin Pilot campaigning for the Congress. That the Congress is winning by comfortable margins now casts a shadow over Raje’s prospects, especially with the state set to go to polls at the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the BJP did manage to secure the runners-up positions in two bypolls held in West Bengal, pushing the left to the third place on both seats. The Congress candidates on both the seats lost their deposits.

BJP national secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, who is also the party convener for West Bengal, reacted to the results in Rajasthan, saying, “We are going to study the reasons, but bypolls don’t reflect the full picture.”

Meanwhile, Pilot said that the bypoll victories in Rajasthan marked the party’s comeback in the state.

The Congress was routed in Lok Sabha elections in 2014, when it couldn’t win any seat in the big state.

Also Read: Takeaway From Uluberia Bypoll Result: BJP Has A Long And Tough Battle Ahead In Bengal