Jaipur. Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma has proved to be a game changer for BJP. In the by-elections in Rajasthan, for the first time after independence, BJP under the leadership of Bhajanlal Sharma has created a record of winning the maximum number of seats simultaneously. In this by-election, BJP has won five out of seven seats. Before this, by-elections were held on a total of 101 seats from the first assembly to the ongoing 16th assembly. Till now in the by-elections held on 6 seats in the year 2000, BJP had won four seats together. At that time BJP was the main opposition party in the state. Ashok Gehlot was the CM in the Congress government.
The special thing is that when first-time MLA Bhajanlal Sharma was given the command of the Chief Minister, bypassing the powerful BJP leader Vasundhara Raje, he was called a weak CM. In 2024 itself, when BJP lost 11 out of 25 seats in Rajasthan in the Lok Sabha elections, not only the opposition but many party leaders also started raising questions from behind the scenes regarding the leadership of Bhajanlal Sharma. However, the Lok Sabha elections were held only four months after the Rajasthan Assembly elections.
Before the elections in Jharkhand, Hemant Soren shot an arrow, BJP could not cut it, all four were defeated.
Out of the seven seats for which elections were held in this assembly by-election, BJP had only one seat, Salubar. Four seats, Dausa, Deoli, Jhunjhunu and Ramgarh were with Congress while Hanuman Beniwal of RLP was the MLA from Khivansar. Rajkumar Rot of Bharatiya Adivasi Party from Chaurasi. Both the seats had become vacant after both of them became MPs. After the announcement of elections, Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma’s ticket selection and precise strategy changed the game.
How did Bhajan Lal become a gamechanger?
1. In ticket selection, Bhajanlal Sharma gave priority to the winning ability of the contenders, the choice of the workers and the leader working in the organization. The result has been that strong candidates have been fielded on all the seats.
2. Bhajan Lal Sharma himself took the responsibility of stopping the rebellion. They were successful in stopping the party’s contenders who were waging rebellion in Jhunjhunu, Ramgarh, Khiwansar and Deoli from contesting the elections as independents. The result is that out of seven seats, BJP did not have to face any rebel, while Congress lost the election due to the field of rebel Naresh Meena in Deoli and Rajendra Gudha in Jhunjhunu.
3. In the Lok Sabha elections, Congress contested the elections in the India alliance, while in the by-elections, due to the allies contesting separately, the Congress was reduced from four to just one seat.
4. Bhajanlal Sharma has long experience in the organization. In the by-elections, attention was paid to micro management on every seat. Room meetings of prominent people of social organizations were organized in every assembly seat. Sharma himself held 14 election meetings. Held meetings of 44 social organizations. He himself was monitoring all seven seats through phone.
5. In every assembly constituency, a joint team of ministers and organization leaders was deployed for election management.
Kundarki seat was SP’s stronghold, BJP got victory after 31 years, due to this SP’s bail was confiscated.
What will happen next now?
Now Bhajanlal Sharma will emerge stronger as the Chief Minister of Rajasthan. BJP high command’s confidence in Bhajanlal Sharma will increase. Sharma will get a free hand in running the government and will now be able to make changes in the cabinet as per his wish. Sharma’s hold on the organization will also increase. The mouths of those who have raised questions on Bhajanlal Sharma’s leadership in Rajasthan will be silenced. The question of the claim of Rajasthan BJP stalwarts including Vasundhara Raje for the post of CM will be ruled out.
The Gehlot-Vasundhara Raje era in Rajasthan politics is now coming to an end. The time of star leaders winning new elections started with Bhajanlal Sharma in Congress and Sachin Pilot in Congress. Sachin Pilot made the Dausa seat a matter of his prestige and gave it to Congress.
Tags: Bhajan Lal Sharma, jaipur news, Vasundhara raje
FIRST PUBLISHED: November 23, 2024, 23:38 IST
