Cong battles anti-incumbency, BJP swears by Modi in Rajasthan polls

JAIPUR: Last month, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the Assembly contest in Rajasthan will be “very close”, sounding less confident of his party’s chances in the state it rules compared to some others going to the polls around the same time.

In Rajasthan which will see a direct fight between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party on November 23 anti-incumbency is an important factor. Since 1993, when the BJP came to power after a stint of President’s rule, the state has alternated between the Congress and the BJP.

The BJP is expected to bank heavily on the popularity of PM Modi and the development projects launched at the Centre. It will pitch to voters its “double-engine” capability.

But CM Ashok Gehlot has been at work for months now, countering the expected anti-incumbency by launching a series of welfare schemes and going the whole hog in publicising them as part of his vision for the state.

And then, just before the model code of conduct for elections kicked in barring governments from making major announcements he ordered holding a caste survey in the state.

But Gehlot’s Congress is a divided house in Rajasthan with the CM and his former deputy Sachin Pilot in a leadership tussle. And BJP will try to exploit the infighting in the ruling Congress while it manages factionalism within its own ranks.

In 2020, the younger Congress leader mounted an open rebellion against the veteran. And this year, he launched an agitation indirectly targeting the Gehlot government over its “failure” to act on corruption he claimed the former BJP dispensation had indulged in. The party’s central leadership, however, has hammered out a truce of sorts.