Before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and Rajasthan Assembly elections, the Congress and BJP have another chance for a show of might. The Lok Sabha seats of Alwar and Ajmer in Rajasthan have bypolls scheduled for 29 January.
The BJP has Labour Minister Dr Jaswant Singh Yadav contesting from the Alwar seat and Ramswaroop Lamba from Ajmer. The Congress, meanwhile, has Raghu Sharma in Ajmer and Karan Singh Yadav contesting from Alwar.
Before yet another heated battle, here’s a look at what happened at the Alwar and Ajmer seats in the last three Lok Sabha elections.
Ajmer: 2004, 2009, 2014 Lok Sabha Elections
Results of the last three elections for this seat show a trend of sorts – both BJP and Congress had control of the seat alternately, at a given point of time.
In 2004, BJP’s Rasa Singh Rawat won this seat with 59 percent vote share. Then, in 2009, Rahul Gandhi’s close friend Sachin Pilot won the seat for the Congress, and in 2014 he was defeated by BJP’s Sanwar Lal Jat.
The seat has been vacant since Jat’s death in August 2017, the BJP has pitched his son Ramswaroop Lamba as their candidate for the bypolls.
Alwar: 2004, 2009, 2014 Lok Sabha Elections
Rajastha’s Alwar district has been in the news since last year when two people were beaten to death by gaurakshaks there. This seat fell vacant after the death of BJP MP Mahant Chandnath.
A look at the last three election results shows that in 2004 and 2009, the Congress won this seat, but in 2014, Chandnath won the seat with a margin of 26 percent. At the moment, the issue of polarisation – reflected by events in the recent past – is being discussed in Alwar.
Both Alwar and Ajmer seats are with the BJP. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Jat had defeated Pilot in Ajmer with a margin of 1.70 lakh votes. In Alwar, Chandnath had won the seat with nearly 2.80 lakh votes. For the BJP, right now, it is about protecting its constituencies. For the Congress, it is about regaining lost glory.
Rajput Organisations Support the Congress
In a setback for the BJP, several Rajput organisations in Rajasthan have spoken about supporting the Congress.
A joint ‘Sangharsh Samiti’ formed by various Rajput, Rawana Rajput and Charan Rajput organisations has accused the BJP of betrayal. Giriraj Singh Lotwara, president of the Shree Rajput Sabha, accused the Vasundhra Raje government of ignoring them and going back on its word, citing the Chatur Singh encounter, the Anandpal encounter in Churu and other issues as examples.
Lotwara said the government had betrayed them in the Anandpal encounter issue. The Rajput people protested after the encounter, but the protest leaders were targeted. The movie ‘Padmaavat’ is another issue over which the Rajputs are said to be angry with the BJP.
(This article was originally published on Quint Hindi.)
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