Rajasthan delimitation may have favoured BJP: What a three-city analysis reveals | Political Pulse News

An analysis of three big corporations reveals that while BJP votes were indeed spread across more wards, resulting in more wins, Congress votes were concentrated and resulted in fewer wins despite the party receiving slightly more votes than the BJP.

Across the three corporations, the Congress polled a total of 10,34,999 votes against the BJP’s 10,19,160. Yet, the BJP won 180 wards as against Congress’s 140, a difference of 40 wards, with the Congress averaging about 2,957 votes across 350 wards in these corporations, more than BJP’s 2,912.

In Jaipur, each winning candidate from BJP received an average of 4,435.7 votes while a winning Congress candidate got an average of 5,298.12 votes. Similarly, the BJP’s winning candidate had an average of 2,429.20 votes in Jodhpur and 2,558.96 votes in Kota as compared to Congress’s 2,859.98 and 3,473.21 votes, respectively.

Thus, on average, a winning candidate of Congress polled 19.44% more votes than a BJP’s winning candidate in Jaipur; the figure was 17.73% in Jodhpur and a staggering 35.73% in Kota.

Overall, each winning candidate of the Congress polled about 684 more votes than the BJP’s winning candidate across the three corporations, or 20.47 percent more. (see Box 1).

The difference is notable because the overall votes were almost evenly matched. The Congress received 39.57% of all votes polled across the three corporations, as against 38.97% for the BJP, or a difference of just 0.6%.

Ahead of the 2020 civic polls, the Congress government had divided each of the three corporations into two. Last year, the BJP had reversed the split and conducted delimitation in these three civic bodies, among others.

Overall, of the total votes polled across 309 civic bodies this year, BJP polled 35.21% against Congress’s 34.30%, a difference of 0.91% while independents stood at 27.31%.

More populous wards with Congress

The demographic data too shows that the Congress wins came in wards with larger populations. In Jaipur, the average population of a ward won by the Congress was around 21,745 as against 20,682 for the BJP.

In Jodhpur, the corresponding figures were 10,900 for the Congress and 10,224 for the BJP. In Kota, the Congress won wards with an average population of about 10,962 as compared to 9,980 for the BJP.

Overall, across Jaipur, Jodhpur and Kota municipal corporations, the average population of wards won by Congress was 15,333, compared with 14,679 in wards won by the BJP, translating into a difference of 655 persons, or 4.46%.

Interestingly, the Congress also dominated the highest individual winners in terms of total number of votes; all five in Jaipur and four out of five each in Jodhpur and Kota were from the Congress.

Additionally, in terms of victory margins too, the Congress got all the top five positions in Jaipur, and three of five in Jodhpur and Kota, where BJP candidates accounted for the remaining positions.

‘Illegal delimitation’

Terming the delimitation as illegal and as against the rules, Congress state president Govind Singh Dotasra claimed that if not for the “dishonest” exercise, the party would have won 1,500 more wards than the BJP across the state.

Gehlot said that, “They succeeded in the delimitation conspiracy they hatched. It was also our fault that we did not pay much attention to it because we trusted the government.”

Dotasra said that, “Some wards have 4,000 and others have 35,000 voters. In smaller civic bodies, some wards have 600 votes, while others have 3,000 voters. The result is that of the wards won by the BJP, the margin of victory is less than 100 votes in 1,316 wards, and less than 50 votes in 772 wards. Similarly, in 13 wards, the BJP managed to win by a mere 1 vote, which is solely due to the dishonest and illegal delimitation, otherwise the BJP would have certainly lost the elections in all these wards.”

He also said that the Congress had requested a recount in 1,316 wards, alleging “that the results were forcibly withheld in those wards where the Congress candidate was ahead by a margin of 200-300 votes, so that an atmosphere could be created in favour of the BJP and the Chief Minister (Bhajan Lal Sharma)”.

Dotasra said that in Jaipur, the Congress received more votes but won fewer wards, citing the “arbitrary delimitation” of wards such as ward number 31 with 13,499 voters and ward 135 with 32,272 voters.

The Congress won 14,626 more votes than BJP in Jaipur and 14,199 more than the BJP in Jodhpur. But in Kota, BJP won 12,986 more votes than the Congress.

Inversion from 2020

Six years ago, the BJP had levelled similar allegations against the Congress, terming its delimitation exercise as a “political conspiracy”.

In the 2014 municipal elections under the Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government, the Jaipur municipal corporation had a total of 91 wards while Jodhpur and Kota had 65 wards each. In Jaipur, the BJP won 64 out of the 91 wards while the Congress could bag only 18 wards. Similarly, the BJP won the majority of wards in the Jodhpur (39/65) and Kota (53/65) municipal corporations as well.

The subsequent Congress government under Ashok Gehlot then divided Jaipur, Jodhpur and Kota into multiple corporations. Jaipur now had a total of 250 wards: 150 in Greater and 100 in Heritage; Jodhpur North and South had 80 each; and Kota North and South had 70 and 80, respectively, for a total of 560 wards.

In the 2020 civil polls, of the 560, the Congress won 261 wards with 40.08% vote share against BJP’s 242 wards and 37.81% share.

Thanks to the bifurcation and the votes, the Congress won a clear majority in the newly formed civic bodies of Jodhpur North and Kota North while the BJP won in Jaipur Greater and Jodhpur South. Later, with the help of Independents, the Congress formed boards in Jaipur Heritage and Kota South as well.

Before the 2020 civic polls, BJP MP and Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal had said the Congress had realised that the BJP had more public support in cities, which would lead to Congress winning fewer seats in civic polls. He also said that Gehlot was afraid that the Congress would not get any mayoral post in Jaipur, Jodhpur and Kota as long as there was one municipal corporation each.

After the results were declared, then state BJP president Satish Poonia had said that despite “discrepancies in delimitation and voting, along with misuse of power”, the Congress couldn’t turn the results in its favour. He said the Congress couldn’t win in its “so-called vote bank” areas and the party failed to live up to its claim of winning six of these municipal corporations and could secure a clear majority in only two civic bodies.

The incumbent BJP government then unified the six corporations into three, bringing the number of wards down to 150 in Jaipur and 100 each in Jodhpur and Kota.

In an interview with The Indian Express last year, BJP state president Madan Rathore had said, “The Congress did delimitation in their time, keeping in mind their political ambitions. They made wards for 500 votes and some wards for 10,000 votes. The Congress created districts…just for their political goals. We have to rectify this mess.”

In November last year, Rajasthan Parliamentary and Law Affairs minister Jogaram Patel said that the delimitation of panchayati raj institutions and urban local bodies has been carried out in accordance with “public sentiment.” He said that the state government has “prioritised the spirit of democratic decentralisation to ensure better accessibility of governance and administration.”