Top 5 issues in Rajasthan elections: From Gehlot’s ‘guarantees’ to BJP’s bet on identity politics

Here are the top five issues on the political landscape ahead of the vote:

Anti-incumbency:

Unlike the last few elections, Gehlot has emerged as the Congress’s single-most popular leader, thanks to his numerous welfare schemes and his success at repeatedly outwitting his opponents, within the party and without.

Hence, this year’s anti-incumbency appears to be mainly directed at the MLAs who had supported Gehlot during the crises in 2020 and 2022.

The dissatisfaction with these MLAs became so evident that earlier this year, the Congress held meetings individually with them, with state AICC in-charge Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Gehlot and state Congress president Govind Singh Dotasra also meeting together the Independent MLAs supporting the government. In the meetings, the MLAs were handed a questionnaire with 13 questions, two of which were: “What plan do you have to stop anti-incumbency against yourself?” and “What is the situation of anti-incumbency against the government among the public? Suggestions for alleviating it.”

An unofficial BJP slogan that became popular in 2018 went: “Modi tujhse bair nahi, Vasundhara teri khair nahi (No enmity with Modi, won’t spare Vasundhara)”. This time, a similar slogan that has gone viral, goes: “Gehlot tujhse bair nahi, mantri / vidhayak teri khair nahi (No enmity with Gehlot, but won’t spare ministers/MLAs).”

In one of his interactions, Gehlot accepted that he had heard the slogan. However, the party has gone on to repeat almost all its sitting MLAs, dropping only nine so far. The BJP’s central leadership, too, has turned down most demands for replacements, gambling on anti-incumbency taking it past the halfway mark despite the many rebellions.

Paper leak/unemployment:

As per the state government, eight examinations held by the Rajasthan Public Service Commission (RPSC) between 2019 and 2022 were cancelled due to paper leaks. This led to at least 15 FIRs being filed in connection with paper leaks, and the arrest of at least 273 people. For cases of cheating, a further 160 FIRs were filed during the same period.

But the scale of the issue can be more accurately gauged from the number of people registered for these 8 examinations: 33,31,698. Although many people get registered for more than one exam, leading to one name being counted several times, the number is still very high, suggestive of unemployment distress.

Till February 2023, the number of unemployed people registered with the state government was 18,40,044, of which 14,40,916 were graduates and 1,01,956 were post-graduates. Between 2018 and February 2023, the state government handed over Rs 1,927 crore as unemployment allowance.

While the Congress is at pains to point out that there are paper leaks in almost every big state, the issue has gathered wind in Rajasthan due to an aggressive campaign by the BJP – with Congress leader Sachin Pilot himself fanning it to an extent by raising it.

The Gehlot government has unsuccessfully tried to control the narrative several times. Earlier this year, it brought in an Act to punish those convicted in paper leak cases with life imprisonment. But it barely created a flutter.

Apart from the over 21 lakh first-time voters this year, there are lakhs in their 20s and 30s who have been affected by the paper leaks, many of them crossing the eligible age due to the delays. The Congress fears they could use their vote to vent their anger.

Communalism:

The BJP is betting big on identity politics. Among others, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma have brought up the beheading of Udaipur tailor Kanhaiyalal over comments on the Prophet last year. In his first address after assuming charge as BJP state president earlier this year, C P Joshi held the state government complicit in Lal’s murder.

The BJP has also been raising cases such as the Rajasthan High Court’s acquittal of four members of the Muslim community who had been sentenced to death in 2019 over the 2008 Jaipur bomb blasts, in which 71 people were killed and 185 injured. The BJP is also highlighting the Sanatan Dharma row to corner the Congress.

Referring to cases of communal tension in the state and prohibitions around religious gatherings, the PM said at a rally in Jodhpur in October: “What was the CM doing when Jodhpur was burning? What were Congress leaders doing when there was violence and innocent people were being killed? Ram Navami, Parshuram Jayanti, Hanuman Jayanti — there is no festival in which news of stone pelting is not received from Rajasthan.”

Pointedly, the BJP announced the appointment of Lok Sabha MP Ramesh Bidhuri as the BJP’s poll in-charge of Tonk district, which has a sizeable Muslim population as well as of the community Bidhuri belongs to, days after he had hurled communal slurs against a Muslim MP in Parliament.

The Congress has been telling voters not to get distracted by emotive issues. Addressing a rally in Rajasthan’s Dausa, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said, “You have to understand the BJP’s perspective. At every election, they only talk of religion and caste, which are connected to your hearts and emotions.”

But the party is worried over another issue giving the BJP a momentum — the scheduled inauguration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya in January. With the stone for its construction quarried in Rajasthan, it is expected to figure prominently in speeches by BJP leaders.

Women’s safety/law and order:

Another issue directly concerning a major demographic is women’s safety. “All it takes is one brutal case to undo the government’s image,” a party leader pointed out.

And, there have been several, which the BJP has been raising.

One of the cases the BJP has been targeting the Gehlot government over is the alleged suppression of a gang rape of a woman in front of her husband in Thanagazi in midst of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Gehlot had responded with several schemes and stricter measures to control crimes, including mandatory FIR registration in such cases.

As per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data for 2018, Rajasthan stood fifth among states in crimes against women, in a list led by BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh. After 2019, Rajasthan shot up to second spot, and retained it in 2020 and 2021, the change attributed to a great degree to the mandatory registration of FIRs.

But the BJP has weaponised this data to claim that Rajasthan has become unsafe for women. What makes the Congress vulnerable in this regard is the absence of senior women leaders in its ranks in the state, unlike Vasundhara Raje in the past and Diya Kumari now for the BJP. Priyanka has been trying to fill in the gap with her frequent rallies in Rajasthan.

For the Congress, explaining to the masses that the rise in the number of FIRs in crimes against women is mainly because of the government’s steps to get every case registered, is an uphill task. For the same reason, it is also stumbling to explain that the average time taken to investigate crimes against women in the state has fallen from 138 days in 2019 to 56 days in 2023.

The BJP continues to drive home its advantage by playing on perceptions. At a rally in Rajasthan on Wednesday, UP CM Yogi Adityanath seamlessly fused the communal agenda with the women’s safety agenda, saying, “If the Congress succeeds (in forming the government), ‘Talibani mentality’ will dominate and play with the honour of sisters and daughters.”

Welfare schemes:

Gehlot’s biggest shield against anti-incumbency are his numerous welfare schemes for virtually every demographic, and then some.

Over the last two-three years, he has managed to create an image of a person dedicated to working for the uplift of the state’s people, irrespective of how effective the schemes have been in coverage.

For government employees, there is the return to the flagship Old Pension Scheme (OPS). For women, there is the Indira Gandhi Smartphone Yojana, the Ekal Naari Samman Pension for divorced women or widows, scooters and scholarships for meritorious children, free sanitary napkins, as well as programmes targeting specific sections of women, including tribals, backward classes and those with disabilities, etc.

For farmers, the government says that since coming to power, its Cooperatives Department has waived short-term loans worth Rs 15,427 crore, and medium- and long- term loans worth Rs 365.10 crore. There are also schemes such as economic assistance of Rs 40,000 for milch cattle that died from lumpy disease.

Beyond these, there are measures and laws that touch every demographic, such as inflation relief camps, Rs 25 lakh health insurance, domestic cylinders at Rs 500, the Right to Health, free domestic electricity up to 100 units, the Free Annapurna Food Packet Scheme, the Minimum Guaranteed Income, the Gig Workers Bill, the subsidised meals at Indira Rasoi Yojana, urban employment scheme, minimum social security pension of Rs 1,000, etc.

Betting big on welfare schemes, the Congress has announced seven more “guarantees” if voted back to power.

With the Congress raising the spectre of a BJP government stopping such schemes, PM Modi, at a Chittorgarh rally last month, said, “I assure Rajasthan that if the BJP wins, it won’t stop any scheme that Gehlotji’s government has started, but will try to improve them. And this is Modi’s guarantee, which means guarantee that every promise will be fulfilled.”