Union minister Gajendra Shekhawat secures third consecutive Lok Sabha victory
Although this marks Shekhawat’s third win since he was first elected in 2014, his margin of victory this time is the narrowest of the three elections
Jodhpur: Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate, achieved a hat-trick of victories on Tuesday after defeating Congress candidate Karan Singh Uchiyarda by over 1.14 lakh votes in the Jodhpur Lok Sabha seat.
Although this marks Shekhawat’s third win since he was first elected in 2014, his margin of victory this time is the narrowest of the three elections.
In 2014, Shekhawat defeated Congress’s Chandresh Kumari by 4.10 lakh votes. In the 2019 elections, he defeated Vaibhav Gehlot, the son of the then chief minister Ashok Gehlot, by 2.74 lakh votes.
In the December 2023 Rajasthan assembly elections, BJP candidates won seven out of the eight assembly constituencies within the Jodhpur parliamentary constituency.
The only seat won by the Congress was Sardarpura, secured by then-CM Ashok Gehlot. The BJP garnered 49.3% of the votes in these assembly elections, while the Congress received 40.7%. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP’s vote share was 59%, compared to the Congress’s 38.6%. In 2014, the BJP received 66.1% of the votes in the Jodhpur constituency, with Congress obtaining only 28.2%.
Political observer Dinesh Ramawat attributes Shekhawat’s reduced margin of victory to several factors. Firstly, the voter turnout was lower compared to previous elections.
Following delimitation, the Jodhpur parliamentary constituency is now considered a Rajput-majority seat. Ramawat noted that the Congress attempted to balance caste equations when selecting their candidate, leading to both candidates exerting their utmost effort during the campaign. With both main candidates being Rajputs, the outcome hinged on the polarisation of votes. As a result, although the Congress candidate did not win, he gave Shekhawat a tough contest compared to the previous elections, where Shekhawat faced Vaibhav Gehlot.
PP Chaudhary achieves third consecutive win in Pali
BJP candidate PP Chaudhary secured his third consecutive Lok Sabha victory from the Pali parliamentary constituency by defeating Congress’s Sangeeta Beniwal by 2.44 lakh votes.
Chaudhary, a senior advocate in the Rajasthan High Court, entered politics in 2014 and won his first election by a record margin of 3.96 lakh votes. He broke his own record in 2019 by defeating Congress candidate Badriram Jakhar by 4.77 lakh votes. However, in this third election, his margin of victory decreased.
