Rajasthan Election Results 2024 highlights: BJP wins Jaipur, maintains leads in other seats

The BJP is registering worrying trends as counting progresses. The incumbent party had won all the 25 seats in Rajasthan in the last two Lok Sabha elections, but the party’s tally is lagging by more than 10 seats.

Cabinet minister Kirodi Lal Meena today said if BJP loses any of the seven seats under his charge, he would resign from his post. The agriculture and rural development minister campaigned on seats in eastern Rajasthan including Dausa, Bharatpur, Dholpur, Karauli, Alwar, Tonk-Sawaimadhopur and Kota-Bundi. “If the party loses even one seat out of the seven, I will leave the post of minister and serve water here,” he said, according to PTI.

“There is doubt on some seats like Barmer and Churu and this will have to be accepted,” Mr. Meena added.

Among others, Bharat Adivasi Party’s Rajkumar Roat leads with a stunning two-lakh margin against BJP’s Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya, in the Banswara seat. 

In the constituency of Sikar, CPI(M)‘s Amra Ram is leading by a margin of 65,000 votes against BJP’s Sumedhanand Saraswati. 

The Rashtriya Loktantrik Party’s Hanuman Beniwal is leading with 58,000 votes over BJP’s Jyoti Mirdha in the Nagaur constituency.

Congress candidates Kuldeep Indora (Ganganagar), Murari Lal Meena (Dausa) and Rahul Kaswan (Churu) have a lead of over six lakh votes, as of 2:30 p.m. Voter margins range between 30,000-80,000 in these seats. In Jhunjhuna, INC’s Brijedra Singh Ola leads by less than 17,000 votes ahead of BJP’s Shubhkaran Choudhary.

BJP candidate from Bhilwara Damodar Agarwal is leading with 8,00,575 votes, as of 2:20 p.m. Dushyant Singh (Jhalawar-Baran) has 7.9 lakh votes; from Rajsamand, Mahima Kumari Mewar has over 7.6 lakh votes. Lok Sabha Speaker and BJP candidate Om Birla (Kota) is leading with 5.7 lakh votes, Union ministers Arjun Meghwal (Bikaner) is leading with 5.4 lakh votes, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat (Jodhpur) with 4.8 votes and Bhupendra Yadav (Alwar) has a lead of 5.8 lakh votes. 

And BJP has its first official win in the State. Manju Sharma won by a margin of 3,31,767 votes from Jaipur, beating INC’s Pratap Singh Khachariyawas and Bahujan Samaj Party’s Rajesh Tanwar. Ms. Sharma polled 8,86,850 votes.

BJP candidate from Jaipur constituency Manju Sharma shows victory sign in Jaipur. Photo Credit: PTI

Rajasthan BJP President C.P. Joshi is leading against INC’s Anjana Udailal from the Chittorgarh seat, with a margin of over 1 lakh votes. “We have full faith that the BJP is getting a clear and full majority. BJP’s aim of ‘400 paar’ will definitely be accomplished,” Mr. Joshi told reporters.

As of 1:30 p.m., the BJP is leading in 239 seats. 

At a press conference in Jaipur, Mr. Joshi added that Opposition parties tried to mislead people by raising irrelevant issues during the elections and it was the NDA which got the support, love and blessings of all.

Congress has a lead across eight seats in Rajasthan: Ganganagar, Churu, Jhunjhunu, Bharatpur, Karauli-Dholpur, Dausa, Tonk-Sawai Madhopur and Barmer. BJP, which won all 25 seats in the 2009 and 2014 polls, is leading in 14 seats as of 1:15 p.m. 

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In Barmer, the second-largest Lok Sabha constituency in the State, INC’s Ummeda Ram Beniwal leads against Independent Ravindra Singh Bhati. Barmer was once upon a time a Congress bastion, but has been consistently won by the BJP since 2014.

Mr. Beniwal joined the Congress in March, shifting from the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP). The politician is considered a prominent face of RLP in the border districts of Barmer and Balotra; he contested the State Assembly election twice from the Batyu constituency. Mr. Beniwal lost to Congress MLA Harish Chaudhary by a thin margin in the 2023 Assembly elections.

Trailing by almost 40,000 votes is Mr. Bhati. He began his political career as a student leader and became an MLA in the short span of four years. r. Bhati is encashing on both his Rajput identity as well as his liberal outlook to become a favourite of the ‘chattis biradari’ or 36 communities of Rajasthan, which includes Muslims. 

BJP’s Kailash Choudhary, an active RSS worker in the State, takes the third place.

In Kota, BJP’s Om Birla leads by a margin of about 13,000 votes against his former colleague and now INC candidate Prahlad Gunjal, as of 11:50 a.m. 

This is a high-profile clash. The Opposition Congress fielded Mr. Gunjal, turning the contest into a high-profile affair, wrote Mohammed Iqbal. Mr. Gunjal, a Gujjar strongman, joined the Congress in March while alleging that the BJP’s politics in Kota was dominated by “just one person”. Mr. Gunjal was also a supporter of former CM Vasundhara Raje, who was sidelined by the BJP’s top leadership.

Mr. Birla — a two-time MLA and a sitting MP since 2014 — has maintained strong relations and focused on urban voters, highlighting the BJP’s guarantees during his public meetings. In contrast, the Congress is banking on Mr. Gunjal’s Other Backward Class (OBC) status, which could make a favourable combination with Dalits and Muslims among the 20.88 lakh-strong electorate.

Elsewhere in the country, as of 11:30 a.m., the BJP leads in 236 seats, the Congress in 96 seats and Samajwadi Party in 34. The AITC leads in 30, DMK in 21, Telugu Desam in 16 seats, followed by the Janata Dal (United) and Shiv Sena (UT).

For more, follow our live coverage here.

Trends as of 11 a.m. have BJP candidates leading at 14 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan. Congress dips to 8 seats and three INDIA bloc parties maintain leads in one seat each. The INDI Alliance parties are CPI(M), Rashtriya Loktantrik Party and Bharatiya Adivasi Party, leading at Sikar, Nagaur and Banswara, respectively. 

The leading BJP candidates include Gajendra Singh Shekhawat (Jodhpur), Arjun Ram Meghwal (Bikaner), Bhupender Yadav (Alwar) and Om Birla (Kota). 

Rajkumar Roat, a sitting MLA from Dungarpur’s Chorasi, is leading against BJP’s Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya by more than 50,000 votes, as of 10:30 a.m. 

Mr. Roat is a founder-member of the BAP, which has emerged as a splinter group from the Gujarat-based Bharatiya Tribal Party. Having emerged as a force to reckon with in a short period since its establishment in 2023, the BAP won three seats in Banswara and Dungapur districts in the 2023 Assembly election. The party’s support base has been growing in southern Rajasthan because of its emphasis on the tribal identity, demand for a separate State for the tribal Bhil community, and the promise of 75% reservation for tribals in education and jobs. 

But Mr. Roat’s nomination for the seat was not an easy task. Read more about how, and why, the Opposition Congress decided to support this leader.

The INC is leading across Ganganagar, Churu, Jhunjhunu, Jaipur Rural, Bharatpur, Karauli-Dholpur, Daisa, Tonk-Sawai Madhopur and Barmer constituencies. 

In Churu, Congress candidate Rahul Kaswan has a lead over BJP’s pick, the paralympic gold medalist Devendra Jhanjharia. Mr. Kaswan’s candidature symbolised a voice of dissent: the two-time MP resigned from the BJP in March this year when he was denied a ticket to contest in the Lok Sabha elections. “Was I not loyal? Was I tainted? Did I leave any stone unturned in getting the works done in Churu?” he wrote in a post on X, adding that he had ensured the implementation of all Central schemes in his constituency. Mr. Kaswan joined Congress. 

The Jat community, comprising 15% of the population in Rajasthan, is unhappy with the BJP over the suppression of the farmers’ agitation and the handling of the women wrestlers’ protest by the Union government last year.

The BJP has maintained its lead across 13 seats. In Bikaner, BJP’s Arjun Ram Meghwal is advancing of INC’s Govindram Meghwal, as of 10:10 a.m. INC’s Pratap Singh Khachariyawas, one of the Cabinet Ministers in the government, is trailing by almost 10,000 votes next to BJP’s Manju Sharma in Jaipur. In neighbouring Jalore, BJP’s Lumbaram is leading against Vaibhav Gehlot, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s son. 

Similar leads are maintained in Alwar, Ajmer, Pali, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Chittorgarh, Rajsamand, Bhilwara, Kota and Jhalawar-Baran. 

BJP had a perfect score in Rajasthan in the 2014 and 2019 polls. Things aren’t the same this year. The simmering anger of the Jat and Rajput communities, multiple power centres resulting from recent political changes and the absence of a ‘wave’ has added to BJP’s challenges. Read why BJP may face an uphill task in the State this year, in this report by Ishita Mishra.

Bharat Adivasi Party’s Rajkumar Roat, supported by Congress, is leading at Rajasthan’s Banswara seat. Former State Minister Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya, fielded by the BJP after he crossed over from Congress, is trailing at the seat.

More than an hour into the counting, the BJP leads in 12 seats, the INC in nine, followed by the Community Party of India (Marxist), the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party and Bharat Adivasi Party.

As of 9:19 a.m., the BJP is leading across Bikaner, Alwar, Tonk-Sawai Madhopur, Ajmer, Pali, Jalore, Udaipur, Chittorgarh, Rajsamand, Bhilwara, Kota and Jhalawar-Baran.

INC has leads across Ganganagar, Churu, Jhunjhunu, Jaipur Rural, Jaipur, Bharatpur, Karauli-Dholpur, Dausa and Barmer. The CPI(M) Amra Ram, fielded as INDIA bloc candidate in Rajasthan’s Sikar, is leading at the seat, while sitting MP Sumedhanand Saraswati is trailing, according to ECI.

Trends from across 11 seats, as of 9 a.m., have the Indian National Congress leading across six seats, from Bikaner, Jhunjhunu, Jaipur (rural), Jaipur, Alwar and Dausa.

BJP, on the other hand, is leading across Bharatpur, Karauli-Dholpur, Ajmer, Jalore and Rajsamand. 

Former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s son Vaibhav Gehlot (Congress) is trailing in Jalore, while Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal (BJP) is trailing in Bikaner.

Counting is underway for the Lok Sabha seats and the bypoll to one assembly constituency in Banswara. The seat had fallen vacant after Congress MLA Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya resigned and joined the BJP. Mr. Malviya contested the Lok Sabha elections from Banswara as a BJP candidate.

Projections have the National Democratic Alliance in the lead. The NDA could win between 18-23 seats in the State, with the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc expected to win 2-7 seats. In terms of vote share, the NDA is likely to capture 62% of the votes, followed by the INDIA bloc (31%) and others (7%).

In this constituency, known as the gateway to Rajasthan’s Thar desert, voters seem to blow hot and cold, The Hindu’s Sobhana K. Nair reported earlier. Here, Prime Minister Modi’s popularity remains undiminished, but the elections were fought on the age-old battle lines of Jat versus Rajput, amidst Dalit fears that the BJP will alter the Constitution and remove reservations. Read more here.

In Kota constituency, BJP has fielded incumbent Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla against INC’s Prahlad Gunjal. Vaibhav Gehlot, son of former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, is contesting against BJP’s Lumbaram Choudhary from the seat of Jalore. 

Rahul Kaswan, a former BJP loyalist, resigned from the party and joined Congress and contested from the Churu constituency against BJP’s Devendra Jhajharia, a paralympic medalist. The fear of an “ ek tarfa” or one-sided government pervades in the three Lok Sabha seats of Shekhawati — including Churu, Sikar and Jhunjhunu. Read more here about how the region bats for a stronger Opposition, as resentment against the Agniveer scheme, rising inflation and stagnant wages swells up.

In Alwar constituency, Union Minister Bhupendra Yadav contested against INC’s Lalit Yadav. BJP fielded Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya against BAP candidate Rajkumar Raot in Banswara constituency. Congress Candidate Urmila Jain Bhaya, wife of Pramod Jain Bhaya, a former minister in the Gehlot government contested from Jhalawar- Baran constituency against BJP candidate Dushyant Singh. Ms. Jain Bhaya had also contested the 2009 Lok Sabha elections against Mr. Singh.

The alliances, particularly with CPI(M) in Sikar and Rashtriya Loktantrik Party in Nagpur, boost Congress. Congress has a chance to win more seats as the infighting between Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot divisions dropped after the 2023 Assembly Election defeat. This unity in Congress might be reflected in the 2024 polls.