In Congress’ Rajasthan loss lies BJP’s victory in 2024 Lok Sabha polls

While it would be premature to finally call the Rajasthan election results just yet, those who predicted it would go down to the wire would certainly be surprised, if not shocked. Anyway, BJP victories don’t come as shockers anymore.

Driving right into it without much ado, one should look into the run up to the polls in Rajasthan as possible reasons, apart from the usual suspects such as anti-incumbency, that seem to be leading, at this point, the Congress towards an unassailable drubbing.

Ashok Gehlot was doing rather well in the days and months leading to the assembly elections, at least, it looked like he was. But, by the time of filing this opinion, BJP is way past the halfway mark, hurtling towards a near sweep.

The sitting chief minister is considered to be a realpolitik, not just an apparatchik of the Congress’ ruling Gandhi dynasty. He tried to size himself up against the ruling dynasty when he almost rebelled in turning down the Congress’ central leadership in an almost sham party president election. Gehlot was confident of his satrapy; he wanted to take chances defending his seat of power than be stuck in the high command jam. He thought he could break the jinx of the “revolving door” nature of Rajasthan politics.

‘Magician’ as he has hitherto been dubbed, BJP was quick to point that Gehlot’s spell has broken. However, he is, without a doubt, a strong regional satrap of Congress. Those who saw the Rajasthan election as a “tight” one, were banking on this factor in their assessments.

But, more than anything else, Gehlot had taken a leaf out of the BJP playbook of gaming the politics of beneficiaries based on DBT or direct benefit transfer model centered around women. He tried to make these schemes coterminous with a hint of soft Hindutva.

He roped in our ubiquitous cow into Congress political discourse in Rajasthan, going against a rather heavily left/liberal-leaning central leadership of the party. The Godhan scheme guaranteed government purchase of cow dung at Rs2 per kg from cattle owners. He also promised free laptops and tablets for first year students at government colleges. Apart from a guarantee of ensuring English medium education for all.

Gehlot tried to sway women voters by promising Rs10,000 every year to all female heads of families in the state under the Gruha Laxmi Guarantee Scheme. He also went on to replicate the Ujjwala scheme of the Modi government—the chief minister promised subsidized LPG cylinders to over one crore families in Rajasthan.

His biggest and most lucrative scheme, however, that was extrapolated by poll pundits to become Gehlot’s magic wand was the Mukhyamantri Chiranjeevi Health Insurance scheme. Again, a leaf out of the BJP’s playbook, the chief minister thought this programme would swing the state for him. Why not? The scheme ensured Rs25 lakh medical insurance to the poor in Rajasthan. Reminds of something? Yes, PM Modi’s flagship PM-JAY.

This list is not exhaustive, but it is indicative.

Gehlot seems to have lost the plot for his “Muslim appeasement”. One can start with what happened in Karauli in 2022. A ‘Nav Samvatsar’ procession to mark the first day of Hindu New Year was passing through a Muslim-dominated neighbourhood and was allegedly attacked.

The police tried to intervene, but came at the receiving end of the violence. A cop who was injured in the stone pelting and direct action “from atop Muslim houses and mosque” lodged a complaint, claiming the attack on the Hindu procession was deliberate and planned and not spontaneous in response to any provocation from the procession.

Karauli was April 2022. Close on heels came the Jodhpur clashes. The city was pushed on the brink. Violence broke out when an Islamic flag was hoisted on an intersection near Jalori Gate in the days leading to Eid. The Islamic flag that caused consternation was put up beside the statue of freedom fighter Balmukund Bissa. Allegedly, the saffron flag that had been put up there had deliberately been removed to make way for the Islamic flag. Jodhpur violence sparked tensions in Bhilwara.

Then a 300-year-old Shiva Temple was razed by bulldozers in Sarai Mohalla area of Alwar. This sparked widespread tensions. Not just this temple, two other temples too were demolished, including the idols inside them.

But, the Kanhaiya Lal murder was the most significant turning point in Gehlot’s fate-line. The ill-fated tailor, who had been warned several times for having supported Nupur Sharma on social media, was brutally murdered in Udaipur. He was killed with a cleaver by two Muslim youths inside his shop. The assailants tried to behead him, but could not. Later, they had posted the gruesome video of the incident on social media to the horror of the entire nation.

Gehlot’s reaction was equally horrifying. He came out saying that the culprits of Kanhaiyal Lal’s murder were BJP’s own. He tried to attack the NIA that took over the case.

Add all these to the rise and rise in horrific crimes against Dalits in Rajasthan, especially targeting the women of the community, and you get a heady potion that will counteract any spell however strong, whipped by any magician however accomplished.

It would be safe to assume that Gehlot failed to manage perception; while the “secular” Congress DNA kept working from behind the scenes, the chief minister failed to see his own society in the right light. His banking on the dead politics of Muslim appeasement cost him his crown.

Conversely, the BJP successfully painted him blacker and blacker by the day with every incident of communal clash. The BJP’s Hindutva pitch resonated with Rajasthan and its voters. Gehlot missed the nuances of his own political equation: the majority of his voters who he tried to woo with politics based on the beneficiary model of the BJP are also part of the majority Hindu community. You can’t ignore the latter and expect success with the former.

In Rajasthan Hindutva seems to have pipped the politics of beneficiaries. If divorced from the politics of identity, the politics of welfare schemes will come up short. And, the BJP has come to own both.

The author is News Editor, Firstpost. He tweets from @SiddharthaRai2 . Views expressed are personal.