Far away from the din and glare of high-voltage poll campaign in the Bihar assembly elections, an electoral battle in this tribal-dominated dusty district of Rajasthan has been built up into a titanic clash between two arch rivals, the ruling BJP and the principal Opposition Congress.
This poll encounter in the South Eastern district is about the November 11 by-election at the Anta seat of the Rajasthan assembly. Had the ruling dispensation and its traditional adversary not made it the issue for proving their respective organisational supremacy this could have been another routine matter of filling up an assembly seat.
Had this been the routine affair, it could have been deemed as a tussle between defender BJP’s new face Morpal Suman and the Congress’ three-time ex-MLA Pramod Jain Bhaya with Congress rebel Naresh Meena attempting to make it a triangular affair. A total of 15 contestants are in the fray in the election whose fate will be decided by the 2.25 lakh-strong electorate on November 11.
Analysts’ guesses based on routine factors of caste equations, caste-wise voters’ strength and their tilts could have worked. According to that traditional view, vote strength-wise there are four castes or communities OBC Mali (40,000), the Scheduled Castes-SCs (35,000), Meena ST(30000 – 32000) and Muslims (20,000- 25,000) constitute the deciding factor.
Usually, they take the call based on the caste and the standing of the candidates. On that count, the ruling party nominee Suman, despite being a OBC-Mali, is no match to the Congress stalwart Bhaiya.
However, this holds good when former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje — the unquestioned leader of the Harauti region, which includes the Anta segment too –, wholeheartedly supports the BJP nominee, Suman.
Notably, Raje and her five-time MP son have been holding the bastion in Harauti (Kota) division since 1989.
The contestants, this time around, do not hold the usual significance. This by-election no longer remained an individual tussle, it had taken dimensions of an institutional (party) clash — being fought with organisational unity by both parties.
Since the disqualification of the BJP MLA Kanwar Lal Meena in May earlier this year necessitated the by-polls, both the main contenders on the seat have started their preparations — strategy to win back the imminent (ensuing) by-election with the all-out efforts.
It is significant to note that the two time-ex CM Raje had maintained sometimes sweet — sometimes sour relations with the incumbent BJP leadership and most of the times in recent years, she remained either aloof or kept marginalised on occasions of most of the public events.
However, for the past some months, she has been kept in good humour and her visibility and importance in most of the key public events of the party has increased. Even in the context of the impending polls, she had been accorded unprecedented attention by the ruling party leadership right from the selection of the party candidate to proactive campaigning.
Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma and BJP state president Madan Rathore went to Raje’s official residence in Jaipur twice to hold meetings over the issue of Anta By-polls.
This was also the first instance when Raje joined Chief Minister Sharma for joint poll campaigning since the installation of the incumbent government in December 2023. She had accompanied the Chief Minister Sharma in two long roadshows, the second one today on the last day of the campaign.
The single factor of Raje’s support and backing to the BJP nominee Suman is potentially enough to dictate the poll outcome. However, the rival Congress has responded befittingly and effectively to the moves and strategy of the saffron party, duly supported the party nominee Bhaya and spearheaded his campaign presenting the entire state leadership with unity and solidarity in the public domain.
The entire leadership of the grand old party, including three timer ex-CM Ashok Gehlot, his former deputy and AICC General Secretary Sachin Pilot, LoP Rajasthan Tika Ram Jully, PCC president Govind Singh Dotasra made joint, prolonged and multiple visits to Anta for campaigning for Bhaya. Leaders like Dotasra and Jully even camped in Anta for several days.
Like BJP leadership, the entire Congress state leadership, including Gehlot, concluded the campaign with a massive road show in Mangrol town today on campaign closing day.
Hence, the campaign for polling on Tuesday, ended with well attended road shows by the two rival parties, at 05:00pm Sunday.
However, the show of unity in the campaign among the entire leadership of both the parties made the poll encounter a titanic clash in which all will be forced to “keep the fingers crossed” until the counting of votes on Friday, November 14.