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Congress pushback on BJP Himachal vote share claim, AAP coalition dig on Gujarat
Gujarat, Himachal state election results: Jairam Ramesh said that the Himachal win was a big boost for the Congress.
The Congress’s Jairam Ramesh on Saturday took a sharp swipe on the BJP after it was reduced to less than 20 assembly seats in Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state. “We were not contesting just the BJP in Gujarat. Along with the ruling party, the AIMIM (Asaduddin Owaisi’s party) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) were also contesting in a coalition,” the former Union Minister said, while taking a dig. The Congress won just 17 seats in Gujarat while the BJP broke its previous records to claim a magnificent win by securing 156 of 182 constituencies.
Following the results, Arvind Kejriwal said that the AAP could now be called a “national party”. “The AAP had the sole motive to cut the Congress votes. Our Gujarat vote share has seen a huge drop from 40 per cent to 27 per cent… but that’s the base. We can cover this loss by the next elections,” Jairam Ramesh stated.
On Himachal Pradesh, he targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remark that the difference in the vote share between the two parties was just 1 per cent. “Nobody can run from this… but PM Modi is trying to. Despite campaigning by the Prime Minister, (BJP chief) JP Nadda and (Union Minister) Anurag Thakur, the ‘double-engine’ government was derailed. There was a 5 percent difference in the vote share.” He further reiterated that the top leadership would be mulling over the name of Chief Minister post.
PM Modi on Thursday - in his victory speech - had spoken about the "marginal 1 per cent vote share difference". As per the Election Commission website, the BJP got 43 per cent of the votes in the state while the Congress got 43.9 per cent votes.
Meanwhile, the title of “double-engine government” - referring to the BJP being in power at the centre and the state level - was initially used by the opposition but gradually Prime Minister Modi and other top BJP leaders started using the term in their election speeches to hit back at the rivals, appealing to voters to pick the party.
