How the East was lost: BJP strides back into restive Sachin Pilot stronghold

The Gujjars and Meenas had banded together behind the Congress in 2018; this time there was anger in community over treatment to Pilot

Realising the Gujjar unhappiness with the Congress over the sidelining of Sachin Pilot, the party had tried to make amends towards the end of campaigning. (PTI Photo)

Written by: Deep Mukherjee

3 min readJaipurDec 4, 2023 03:10 PM IST First published on: Dec 4, 2023 at 09:59 AM IST

As the BJP comfortably passed the halfway mark in Rajasthan on Sunday and is all set to form the government in the state, one of the key regions where it outmanoeuvred the Congress was Eastern Rajasthan.

Back in 2018, the Congress had performed exceptionally well in the region, with the BJP winning only 1 of the 24 constituencies across its districts of Bharatpur, Dausa, Dholpur, Karauli, and Sawai Madhopur. This had gone a long way in helping dislodge the then Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government in the state.

This time, the BJP wrested 13 seats, with the Congress managing to win only 8. Three seats were won by Independents and other parties.

Among those from the Congress who lost in these districts were sitting ministers and senior MLAs who lost despite holding significant influence in the region.

In Deeg-Kumher, Cabinet minister and a member of the erstwhile Bharatpur royal family, Vishvendra Singh, lost to the BJP’s Shailesh Singh by 7,895 votes. In Weir, Minister Bhajan Lal Jatav lost to Bahadur Singh Koli of the BJP by more than 6,900 votes.

Similarly, Cabinet minister Ramesh Meena lost from Sapotra by a huge margin of more than 43,000 votes to the BJP’s Hansraj Meena. In Dausa district’s Sikrai, Women and Child Development Minister Mamta Bhupesh lost to the BJP’s Vikram Bansiwal by more than 9,000 votes.

The results also indicate that the Congress bid to make the Eastern Rajasthan Canal Project (ERCP) an election issue, and taking out protests against the BJP government at the Centre for not giving national project status to the ERCP, did not resonate with the public.

One of the significant factors responsible for the Congress’s performance in 2018 here was the Gujjar-Meena bonhomie (the two groups are otherwise considered rivals) in districts such as Dausa, primarily because of Congress leader Sachin Pilot, who at the time was the president of the Rajasthan Congress and seen as its CM face.

Pilot, who belongs to the Gujjar community, has significant influence in Eastern Rajasthan, including districts such as Dausa, from where he and his family members have been MPs. It was due to the hope that Pilot would become CM that Gujjars, traditionally BJP voters, had backed the Congress.

Realising the Gujjar unhappiness with the Congress over the sidelining of Pilot, the party had tried to make amends towards the end of campaigning.

Take for instance the case of Dausa, a region with a high Gujjar population. The BJP, which had failed to win a single seat in Dausa in 2018, this year won 3 out of 4 seats in the district. Among those who lost were Congress heavyweights such as Mamta Bhupesh and Health Minister Parsadi Lal Meena.

Another district where the BJP improved its performance was Sawai Madhopur, where the party had fielded its tallest tribal leader, Rajya Sabha MP Kirodi Lal Meena. He defeated Congress MLA Danish Abrar by more than 22,000 votes.

The Congress did win 2 out of 4 seats in Karauli and 3 out of 4 in Dholpur, which allowed the party to have some presence in the region, but the Congress’s failure to hold on to its gains in Eastern Rajasthan meant the party was shown the door in Jaipur.