Rajasthan civic poll shakes up political landscape: CPI(M) makes history, Independents soar, BJP stumbles

The CPI(M) made history in Rajasthan by winning the municipal election in Nokha in Bikaner district to become the first communist party to win a majority in a civic poll in Rajasthan. Results of the two-phase elections were announced on Monday, 14 September, in which the party won 29 of the 45 wards in Nokha. “The die is cast and we will utilise this opportunity to demonstrate how to govern fairly and distribute resources equitably,” said CPI(M) Member of Parliament from Sikar Amra Ram. Nokha, he hoped, would be a model municipality and pioneer a model of grassroot development.

The CPI(M) victory, the one per cent difference between the vote-share of the BJP and the Congress and the astonishing victory of independent candidates who polled 27.47 per cent of the votes—the highest ever by independent candidates—go to show how shaky the BJP is in the state. While BJP has been celebrating its ‘victory’ in the civic polls, the facts on the ground tell a different story.   

The ruling BJP failed to secure an outright majority in as many as 145 local bodies and is pinning its hopes on the large number of independent candidates to bail it out in forming the boards. “After losing Pali, Bikaner, Ajmer and Bharatpur, BJP is using government officials in various districts to persuade, lure and, if necessary, intimidate independent candidates to support the BJP in forming boards,” alleged former chief minister Ashok Gehlot. The PCC president Govind Singh Dotasra reiterated that the unfair and illogical delimitation of wards had led to the Congress losing at least a thousand wards in the state. In some municipalities, he claimed, Congress had polled more votes than the BJP but the latter won more wards because of delimitation.

As reported earlier, BJP failed to get a majority in the home districts of chief minister Bhajan Lal Sharma and state unit president Madan Rathor; in Jodhpur, hometown of Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, BJP and Congress won 25 wards each. In Bharatpur, Bhajan Lal’s home district, BJP managed to win just 20 out of 65 wards while Independents won 36.

The BJP also fell short of majority in Jhalawar, home turf of former chief minister Vasundhara Raje and Dushyant Singh, her son and four-time Lok Sabha member. The ruling party also suffered a rude jolt in Baran, which falls under Dushyant Singh’s Lok Sabha constituency, where Aam Aadmi Party made a striking entry by winning 30 out of the 60 wards.

The BJP however, secured a clear majority in 85 municipal bodies as against Congress’s 45. In municipal councils and 122 municipalities, neither the Congress nor the BJP have a clear majority and will rely on the support extended by independent candidates to run the municipal bodies. Independent candidates and smaller parties pulled ahead of both Congress and the BJP in 34 municipal bodies, thus leaving 145 municipalities where the picture is not yet clear.