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Journalism of Courage
When the Congress returned to power in Rajasthan in the 2018 Assembly elections, it had 27 MLAs more than the BJP’s 73. The Congress won 99 seats, adding Ramgarh when the election for the seat was held after a month, taking its tally to 100.
But there were 38 Assembly seats — 11 more than the difference in tally between the Congress and BJP — where the victory margin of winners from either party was less than 5,000 votes, a reflection of the close contest and how it could have gone either way.
In 9 Assembly seats in 2018, the victory margin was less than a 1,000 votes. These included Asind seat in Bhilwara, where Jabbar Singh Sankhala of the BJP defeated Manish Mewara of the Congress by just 154 votes; Pilibanga seat that was won by the BJP by only 278 votes; Khetri seat, won by senior Congress leader Jitendra Singh by 957 votes; and Fatehpur and Pokaran, where Congress MLAs Hakam Ali Khan and Shale Mohammad won by 860 and 872 votes, respectively.
Mohammad went on to become the Minority Affairs Minister in the Ashok Gehlot Cabinet.
Among the narrow-margin winners was senior BJP MLA and current Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Rajendra Rathore, who won from Churu by just 1,850 votes.
The other constituencies where the victory margin was less than 5,000 votes were Surajgarh, Mandawa, Danta Ramgarh, Khandela, Shahpura, Chomu, Phulera, Malviya Nagar, Chaksu, Tijara, Behror, Nadbai, Bandikui, Beawar, Masuda, Makrana, Marwar Junction, Bhopalgarh, Pachpadra, Siwana, Chohtan, Raniwara, Gogunda, Vallabh Nagar, Sagwara, Ghatol, Begun, Bhim, Bundi, Sangod, Chhabra and Khanpur.
