New Delhi, Dec 9 The Panchayat poll results in Rajasthan are considered a blow to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot who has just survived internal rebellion in the state. The faction opposing him in the party is lying low since the truce but the rift still persists.
The Panchayat elections could have been a boon for Gehlot but in a close contest the BJP had the edge over the Congress. The Congress government has completed two years in power and within that time span the results say it all. Party insiders feel that the the feud between Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot has cost the party dear which has not performed well.
The saffron party in Rajasthan bagged 1,911 seats in the recently held panchayat samiti elections while the Congress was limited to 1,781 seats.
The Independents gained 425 seats, the Bahujan Samaj Party got 3 seats while the CPI-M captured 16 seats and the RLP got 57, according to the state election commission website.
Results for 4,239 seats were announced out of the 4,371 with the counting still underway. The BJP managed to cross the majority mark on its own in 11 Zilla Parishads, winning 353 of the 636 Zilla Parishad seats as per the data published on the Rajasthan State Election Commission website.
The Congress has lost the Panchayat polls when the farmers agitation is at its peak in the country. The BJP is in a celebratory mood and party Chief JP Nadda thanked the voters for reposing faith in the party.
Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister for Information & Broadcasting, said this was a rural election with 2.5 crore voters and the party's win indicates that farmers are pro-reforms on the farm laws.
Ahead of the polls, Ashok Gehlot had alleged that the BJP is trying to topple his government, and danger seems to be looming large as a rebellion is said to be brewing among a section of party leaders.
Even though the BJP has rejected the charge, party insiders say that things do not seem to be smooth after the rebellion by a section of the state Congress led by then Deputy CM and Rajasthan Congress unit chief Sachin Pilot in July this year. Sachin is lying low since his open rebellion against Gehlot's leadership.
But now after the panchayat polls have been lost Gehlot will find it difficult to blame anybody else since he has been leading the state. The opposition faction may again try to take the matter to the Congress leadership.
In the 2019 general elections also, with Gehlot being the CM, the Congress had lost all the Lok Sabha seats in the state.
( With inputs from IANS )
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