Jaipur: The Congress on Thursday won all three bypoll seats the Lok Sabha constituencies of Ajmer and Alwar and the Assembly seat of Mandalgarh in Rajasthan, giving a major blow to the BJP before several state elections and the Parliamentary elections in 2019.
All the three seats were earlier held by BJP lawmakers, whose death led to the untimely elections.
In Alwar, Congress candidate Karan Singh Yadav won by a margin of over 1.44 lakh votes over his nearest rival, Jaswant Yadav from the BJP. Yadav is a minister in the government.
Congress candidate Raghu Sharma won the Ajmer Lok Sabha bypoll by a margin of 81,223 votes. He defeated Ramswaroop Lamba of the BJP.
The Congress also wrested the Mandalgarh Assembly seat from the ruling BJP as its candidate Vivek Dhakar trounced his nearest rival Shakti Singh Hada by 12,976 votes.
While Dhakar got 70,146 votes, Hada got 57,170 votes in the bypoll held on January 29. In Mandalgarh, Hada, Dhakar, and independent Gopal Malviya were the top contenders among eight candidates.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi praised the party workers for the win and said the victory was a rejection of the BJP by the people of Rajasthan.
The bypolls did not receive any less attention from the two contending parties and both Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and Congress leader Sachin Pilot campaigned as hard as they could for a full election.
In the extremely charged run-up to the bypolls, the Congress accused the BJP of trying to polarise voters and not doing anything to prevent minority communities from being attacked in incidents mostly linked to cow vigilantism.
Sachin Pilot said: "The voters have rejected the BJP government in the state and Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje should resign on moral ground owing to the defeat in all three seats."
Former Congress chief minister and AICC general secretary Ashok Gehlot said: “The reverse counting of Modi rule had begun from Gujarat and now it is visible in Rajasthan.”
Rajput Sabha, Rajput Karni Sena, and Rawana Rajput organisations have hailed the victory of the Congress alleging that the BJP has met its own fate as it rejected the demands of the community people.
A total of 42 candidates were in the fray for the three seats.
With PTI Inputs