On December 3, the Congress party faced significant setbacks with the loss of Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan to the Bharatiya Janata Party, securing only 35 and 69 seats in the respective states. Although Chhattisgarh’s result surprised many, Rajasthan’s outcome had been anticipated by poll watchers due to the state’s historical oscillation between the two major parties. However, the Rajasthan verdict reveals complexities beyond initial impressions.
In Rajasthan, the incumbent Congress party secured 69 seats with a 39.5% vote share, while the BJP triumphed with 115 seats and a slightly higher 41.7% vote share, indicating a marginal difference of 2.2%. Despite a sense of anti-incumbency, the overall electoral support for Congress mirrored that of the BJP.
Interestingly, this suggests that Congress leaders struggled to rally sufficient constituency support, even though the party maintained a considerable presence in the state. The significance is underscored by the fact that Congress emerged as the runner-up in an impressive 111 seats, contrasting with the BJP’s 66, indicating a substantial reversal in victory numbers.
The Congress defeat unfolds through margins, with over 40% of constituencies, or 77 seats, experiencing victory margins exceeding 20,000 votes. Within this category, the Congress secured victories in only 28 seats, while the BJP claimed 45. In the 55 seats where victory margins ranged between 10,000 and 20,000, the BJP outpaced the Congress with 34 wins to their 19. Within the 33 seats featuring victory margins between 5,000 and 10,000, the Congress secured 10 wins compared to the BJP’s 19.
Among 66 seats with a victory margin of five percent or less, the BJP triumphed in 34, while the Congress secured 23. Nineteen seats recorded a victory margin exceeding 20 percent, with the BJP claiming 11, highlighting significant wins in crucial constituencies. In this election, 10 seats witnessed a victory margin surpassing 50,000 votes. Of these, the BJP emerged victorious in six, while the Congress secured three—an increase from 2018 when only four such seats existed, including Tonk, won by Sachin Pilot.
Remarkably, the BJP clinched both the seat with the narrowest victory margin, Kotputli (won by Hansraj Patel with a 321-vote lead), and the one with the widest margin, Vidhyadhar Nagar (won by an impressive 71,368 votes). Notably, Vidhyadhar Nagar had elected royalty, Rajsamand parliamentarian Diya Kumari, who also harbors chief minister aspirations and secured the seat with over 63% of the votes in her favor.
