Over to voters, as frenetic campaign ends in Rajasthan

As loudspeakers fell silent on the last day of campaign in election-bound Rajasthan on Thursday, both the ruling Congress and the Opposition BJP exuded confidence of comfortably forming the next government. The campaign ahead of voting on November 25 saw star campaigners like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP National President J.P. Nadda, UP CM Yogi Adityanath, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Sachin Pilot woo voters with a range of promises.

On the last day of campaign, Union Home Minister Amit Shah addressed mediapersons in Jaipur and criticised the ruling Congress government, alleging that during the last five years communal clashes took place in the state with planned strategies and Chief Minister Gehlot failed to take any concrete action against the rioters due to ‘vote bank’ politics. He also highlighted that high rate of crimes against women in the state.

From promise of caste census to anti-corruption probe against babu and politicians, from annual payment of Rs 10,000 to women head of family to LPG cylinder at Rs 400, from shelter for all to empowering panchayats to hire manpower, from better education, free laptops and 2.5 lakh government job to free medical insurance, rival parties pressed all their resources into service to attract voters during electioneering that peaked over the last two weeks.

The 5.3 crore voters in the state will pick a new 200-member Assembly on Saturday. Out of the 200 constituencies, 59 are reserved for SC/ST candidates. In 2018, the Congress had won 100 seats with 39.3% vote share while the BJP got 73 seats with 38.8% vote share. Interestingly, for the past 30 years Rajasthan has never voted the governing party back to office – a jinx that Gehlot is determined to break this time. On the other hand, the BJP is banking on the voters’ penchant for a picking a new party to rule the state every five years.

Apart from Gehlot’s Sardarpura Assembly constituency, all eyes would be on Vasundhara Raje Scindia’s Jhalrapatan seat. Scindia, BJP’s chief ministerial face till the last Assembly elections, has been elected from Jhalrapatan Assembly constituency four times since 2003. The constituency is part of the Jhalawar Lok Sabha seat represented by Raje’s son Dushyant Singh. Raje, along with Gehlot, is among the very few politicians in Rajasthan who has never changed their constituencies in elections.

The tag of being a VVIP seat and that too of a former chief minister draws a lot of media attention. All flagship schemes of her previous government like the Rajshri Yojana for promoting education of the girl child, water-sustainability and free cereals have benefit with full spirit in the constituency in Jhalawar district.

In 2018 elections, Raje beat Manvendra Singh of the Congress by 34,980. In 2013, the former CM beat Meenakshi Chandrawat of the Congress by 60,896 votes.