Congress candidates led from the beginning in vote count in both the Lok Sabha seats and edged past the BJP in Mandalgarh Assembly seat after initially trailing. At the end, the party won all three seats.
Caravan News
JAIPUR: — In a spectacular showing, the Congress on Thursday wrested the Lok Sabha seats of Alwar and Ajmer and Mandalgarh Assembly seat in Rajasthan from the ruling BJP, sparking wild celebrations.
Hundreds of Congress activists burst firecrackers and danced to drum beats outside the party office here as its candidate Vivek Dhakar trounced Bharatiya Janata Party’s Shakti Singh Hada by 12,976 votes in Mandalgarh constituency. Many amongst them distributed sweets.
While Dhakar got 70,146 votes, Hada secured 57,170 in the by-election held on January 29, Election Commission officials said.
The election followed the death of BJP MLA Kirti Kumari due to swine flu in August last year.
In Ajmer, with 100 per cent of the vote count over, Raghu Sharma of the Congress was leading by 84,414 votes by securing 6,11,514 votes. The BJP’s Ram Swaroop Lamba had got 5,27,100 votes. The results have been officially declared just now.
Congress has won the Alwar Lok Sabha seat also where, after 100 per cent of the vote count done with, Karan Singh Yadav of the Congress was leading by 1,96,496 votes. He garnered 6,42,416 votes, leaving behind Jaswant Singh Yadav of the BJP at 4,45,920 votes. The result has been declared.
Congress candidates led from the beginning in vote count in both the Lok Sabha seats and edged past the BJP in Mandalgarh after initially trailing at the second spot.
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A total of 42 candidates were in the fray in the three seats, all of which were held by the BJP. There were 23 contestants in Ajmer and 11 in Alwar.
The elections to the Lok Sabha constituencies were necessitated by the deaths of Sanwarlal Jat (Ajmer) and Mahant Chand Nath Yogi (Alwar).
With Assembly elections scheduled later this year in Rajasthan, Congress leaders insisted that the verdict was a rejection of the BJP.
Congress leader and former union minister Sachin Pilot demanded Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje’s resignation on moral grounds.
“It is a victory for people, party workers and all leaders,” Pilot told the media.
He said the BJP, after failing to woo the voters on the strength of religion, tried to polarize voters on caste lines but failed to fool the young voters.
“Young people in this country have realized that the politics of polarization doesn’t work,” he said. “The high-handedness and arrogance (of the BJP) has been rejected.”
Congress leader and former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said the results were a precursor to the 2019 general elections. “This by-election is a vote against BJP’s divisive politics.”
He took a dig at the BJP government in the state, saying apart from changing the names of Congress-era schemes, the Chief Minister had done nothing concrete for the people in the past four years she has ruled the country’s largest state.
“Unemployment is hurting the youth. Today’s trends can be seen as precursor to not just state Assembly polls later this year but also to the next Lok Sabha polls,” Gehlot said.
— With inputs from IANS