Rajasthan Election Results 2018: Congress wins 99 seats; emerges single largest party in Rajasthan

Vasundhara Raje resigned

Following the declaration of results, Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje of the BJP tendered her resignation to the Governor Kalyan Singh, though she won from her constituency Jhalrapatan and defeated her Congress rival Manvendra Singh.

Race for Chief Minister’s post

Now the bigger worry for the Congress party is that the two of its candidates, Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot are battling against each other for the Chief Minister’s post.

Both Gehlot and Pilot won in their respective constituencies comfortably. While Gehlot won the Sardarpura seat for the fifth time, Pilot won by a huge margin from Tonk.

• In 2013, when the Congress faced its worst defeat in the state, winning just 21 seats against the BJP’s 163, Party President Rahul Gandhi handed the reins of the state to Sachin Pilot, a two-time parliamentarian and son of former leader Rajesh Pilot who died in 2000 in a road accident.
• Pilot had made a vow in 2014, when the party lost in the Lok Sabha elections, to not wear a turban till the Congress returns to power.
• Pilot served as Minister in the UPA government in different capacities. He was elected as an MP from his father’s constituency Dausa in 2004 and became the youngest member of the parliament. He was elected again from Ajmer in 2009.
• Pilot was also the Minister of State for Communication and IT in 2009 and Minister of State (Independent charge) for Corporate Affairs in 2012.
• Pilot was selected as one of the Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum in 2008.
• He received his Private Pilot’s Licence (PPL) from the US in 1995 and is also a keen sportsman and represented Delhi in a number of National Shooting Championships.
• He did his graduation from Delhi’s St Stephen’s College and MBA from Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania.

• In his early years, Gehlot headed the Rajasthan unit of the National Students Union of India (NSUI) and was a staunch loyalist of the Gandhi family.
• After his first proper job as NSUI's Rajasthan president from 1974 to 1979, he went on to become the Jodhpur district Congress Committee President from 1979 to 1982.
• Gehlot was first-elected to Parliament in 1980 and went on to win Lok Sabha elections four more times.
• Since 1999, he has represented the Sardarpura assembly constituency, winning five consecutive terms in the House.
• Gehlot has served various ministries such as Union Ministry of Tourism; Civil Aviation; Sports; and Textiles in different stints between 1982 and 1993.
• He was also the AICC General Secretary in charge of Delhi and the Sewa Dal cell from 2004-2009.

Single phase elections of 2018

Rajasthan had gone for polling in a single phase election on December 7, 2018 for 199 out of total 200 seats. The election in Alwar’s Ramgarh seat was postponed due to the death of BSP candidate Laxman Singh and the polling will take place later.

The single phase election happened in Rajasthan after weeks of intense campaigning by state-level leaders including Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, Congress’ Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot, and national level leaders including PM Narendra Modi, BJP National President Amit Shah and Congress President Rahul Gandhi.

Note: A political party needs to win at least 100 seats to secure a simple majority in the State Legislative Assembly.

2013 Rajasthan Legislative Assembly elections

The term of current Rajasthan Assembly ends on January 20, 2019. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has been in power in the state since 2013 with Vasundhara Raje holding the post of Chief Minister of Rajasthan since 2013; previously she served in the same post from 2003 to 2008.

In 2013, Vasundhara Raje won the 14th Rajasthan Legislative Assembly elections from Jhalrapatan constituency, winning 163 out of the 200 seats. Congress had finished a distant second with just 21 seats. National People's Party (NPP) had won four seats and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had won three.