Rajasthan bypolls: Cong wins 3 seats, blow to BJP ahead of 2019 LS elections

Jaipur: The Congress on Thursday won an assembly seat in Mandalgarh and two Parliamentary bypolls in Ajmer and Alwar in Rajasthan giving a major blow to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) before several state elections and the Parliamentary elections in 2019.

All the three seats were earlier held by BJP lawmakers, whose death led to the untimely elections.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi praised the party workers for the win and said the victory was a rejection of the BJP by the people of Rajasthan.

Meanwhile, BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya said that the party will look into the reason defeat in the state. "We are going to study the reasons, but bypolls don't reflect the full picture," said Vijayvargiya.

The bypolls did not receive any less attention from the two contending parties and both Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and Congress leader Sachin Pilot campaigned as hard as they could for a full election.

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In the extremely charged run-up to the bypolls, the Congress accused the BJP of trying to polarise voters and not doing anything to prevent minority communities from being attacked in incidents mostly linked to cow vigilantism.

Sachin Pilot said the victory in the bypolls mark his party's comeback trail in a big state at an important point in the national politics.

"Initial trends of Rajasthan bypolls are a mandate against the Government; I hope our leads will increase even more. Vasundharaji and her government have been totally rejected by people," Pilot told news agency ANI.

All the three seats are linked to Congress President Rahul Gandhi's top lieutenants in Rajasthan - Pilot, CP Joshi and Jitendra Singh Bhanwar.

The BJP and Vasundhara Raje went all out in their campaign to retain the seats, with the Chief Minister dividing her time between Ajmer and Alwar.