Jaipur: BJP leader Vasundhara Raje has won in Rajasthan's Jhalrapatan assembly seat against her Congress rival Ramlal Chouhan. Raje got 138831 votes, 53193 more than Chouhan who had got 85638 votes.
Raje who has been the state Chief Minister in the past has not been named yet as the CM face by BJP as there are speculations that the party might bring in a fresh face. However, Raje's massive victory does make her case to return as BJP CM much stronger. In the 2018 Rajasthan Assembly elections, Raje had won this seat defeating Congress leader Manvendra Singh by a margin of 34,980 which was 16.26% of the total votes cast for the seat. BJP had a vote share of 54.14% in 2018 in this seat.
BJP leads past the halfway mark with 113 seats as Congress is trailing with 72. The saffron party is set to come to power in the state as predicted by most exit polls. With the saffron surge on the horizon, the question of who will be allowed to lead the state ahead of the crucial General Elections 2024.
Reacting to the Rajasthan win, Raje said: "This is a wonderful victory of Rajasthan, this is the victory of PM Modi, whose mantra is Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas and Sabka Prayas. The victory given by them is guaranteed. This victory is the victory of Home Minister Amit Shah ji's strategy, our workers and our national president JP Nadda ji."
“Most importantly, it's a victory for our party workers. It is a victory of the people who rejected the Congress misrule and accepted the BJP's Suraj,” Raje said. The first woman chief minister of Rajasthan, Raje governed the state twice from 2003 to 2008 and then from 2013 to 2018. After the saffron party lost power in 2018, she chose distance from the party and was absent from its meetings and programmes.
In the 2023 Rajasthan Assembly elections, there were a total of 2,96,942 eligible electors in the constituency, of which 1,51,182 were male and 1,45,760 female and registered voters were of the third gender.
Groups of women workers at the party office also raised slogans hailing Prime Minister Narendra Modi. BJP is going to get a thumping victory and will form the government, a party worker said.
Counting of votes in elections to the 230-member state assembly held on November 17, began at 8 am on Sunday, a poll official said. Postal ballots were counted between 8 am and 8.30 am, after which the counting of votes through EVMs began in the presence of officials and political parties' authorised agents, he said.
