Inside Congress’ defeat in Rajasthan lies BJP’s victory in 2024 Lok Sabha polls – Firstpost

Although it would be premature to definitively announce the results of the Rajasthan elections, those who predicted that the results would be out would certainly be surprised, even shocked. Either way, the BJP’s victories are no longer shocking.

Getting to it without further ado, one should look at the run-up to the Rajasthan elections as possible reasons, apart from the usual suspects such as the ruling opposition, which seem to be leading, at this stage, the Congress to an unassailable position. beating.

Ashok Gehlot was doing quite well in the days and months leading up to the general elections, or so it seemed. But, at the time of filing this notice, the BJP is well past the halfway point, hurtling towards a near victory.

The sitting chief minister is seen as a realpolitik, not just an apparatchik of the ruling Gandhi dynasty in the Congress. He tried to take on the ruling dynasty when he almost rebelled by rejecting the central leadership of the Congress in a near-sham election as party president. Gehlot was sure of his satrapy; he wanted to take risks to defend his seat of power rather than find himself stuck in the gridlock of high command. He believed he could break the nature’s spell of “revolving doors” of Rajasthan politics.

“Magician”, as he has been nicknamed so far, the BJP was quick to point out that Gehlot’s spell was broken. However, he is undoubtedly a powerful regional satrap of the Congress. Those who considered the Rajasthan elections “close” counted on this factor in their assessments.

But, more than anything else, Gehlot had taken a cue from the BJP playbook of playing beneficiary politics on the basis of DBT or a women-centric direct benefit transfer model. He tried to dovetail these projects with a dash of soft Hindutva.

He has incorporated our omnipresent cow into the political discourse of the Rajasthan Congress, opposing a rather left-leaning and liberal-leaning central leadership of the party. The Godhan scheme guaranteed the government to purchase cow dung from cattle owners at Rs 2 per kg. He also promised free laptops and tablets for first-year students at public colleges. In addition to the guarantee of providing English education for all.

Gehlot tried to influence women voters by promising Rs 10,000 every year to all women heads of households in the state under the Gruha Laxmi guarantee scheme. He also replicated the Modi government’s Ujjwala scheme: the chief minister had promised subsidized LPG cylinders to over a million families in Rajasthan.

However, his biggest and most lucrative project, which was extrapolated by poll pundits to become Gehlot’s magic wand, was the Mukhyamantri Chiranjeevi health insurance scheme. Again, taking a leaf out of the BJP playbook, the chief minister believed that this scheme would swing the state to his place. Why not? The scheme guaranteed medical insurance of Rs25 lakh to the poor of Rajasthan. Does this remind you of something ? Yes, PM Modi’s flagship product, PM-JAY.

This list is not exhaustive, but it is indicative.

Gehlot seems to have lost track of his “Muslim appeasement”. We can start with what happened in Karauli in 2022. A “Nav Samvatsar” procession marking the first day of the Hindu New Year was passing through a predominantly Muslim neighborhood and was allegedly attacked.

The police tried to intervene, but were the target of violence. A police officer who was injured during the stone-pelting and direct action “from the tops of Muslim houses and the mosque” filed a complaint, saying the attack on the Hindu procession was deliberate and planned and not spontaneous in response to any provocation from the procession.

Karauli was in April 2022. The Jodhpur clashes followed closely. The city was pushed to the brink. Violence broke out when an Islamic flag was raised at a junction near Jalori Gate in the days leading up to Eid. The Islamic flag which caused consternation was unfurled next to the statue of freedom fighter Balmukund Bissa. The saffron flag that hung there was apparently deliberately removed to make way for the Islamic flag. The violence in Jodhpur has triggered 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 only this temple, but two other temples were also demolished, including the idols in them.

But the murder of Kanhaiya Lal was the most important turning point in Gehlot’s destiny. The hapless tailor, who had been booked several times for supporting Nupur Sharma on social media, was brutally murdered in Udaipur. He was hacked to death by two young Muslims inside his store. The attackers tried to decapitate him, but did not succeed. They later posted the gruesome video of the incident on social media, much to the horror of the entire nation.

Gehlot’s reaction was equally horrifying. He said that the culprits behind the murder of Kanhaiyal Lal were those of the BJP. He tried to attack the NIA which took charge of the matter.

Add to all this the rise and rise of horrific crimes against Dalits in Rajasthan, particularly targeting women of the community, and you have an intoxicating potion that will counter any spell, no matter how powerful, whipped up by anyone. no matter how accomplished a magician may be.

It would be reasonable to assume that Gehlot failed to manage perception; while the Congress’s ‘secular’ DNA continued to work behind the scenes, the chief minister failed to see his own society in the right light. His bet on the dead policy of appeasement with Muslims cost him his crown.

Conversely, the BJP has managed to paint it darker and darker day by day with each incident of communal conflict. The BJP’s Hindutva narrative has resonated with Rajasthan and its voters. Gehlot failed to understand the nuances of his own political equation: the majority of his voters, whom he tried to woo with politics based on the BJP’s beneficiary model, are also part of the majority Hindu community. You can’t ignore the second and expect to succeed with the first.

In Rajasthan, Hindutva seems to have disrupted the politics of beneficiaries. If separated from identity politics, the politics of welfare systems will prove insufficient. And the BJP has become the owner of both.

The author is News Editor, Firstpost. He has been tweeting since
@SiddharthaRai2
. The opinions expressed are personal.