In Rajasthan, local anti-incumbency against MLAs reason for Congress loss: Data

There does seem to be merit in the argument that local anti-incumbency against MLAs played a bigger role in this year’s Rajasthan results

In keeping with a 30-year trend that sees the incumbent being defeated in Rajasthan, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has defeated the Congress in the state. The BJP has won xx of 199 seats that went to polls (election in one constituency has been postponed) with a xx% vote share compared to xx seats and xx% vote share for the Congress.

BJP workers celebrating the party’s victory in three states. (HT Photo)

There does seem to be merit in the argument that local anti-incumbency against MLAs played a bigger role in this year’s Rajasthan results than a macro anti-incumbency against the Congress.

An HT analysis of flips at the assembly constituency (AC) level in 2018 and 2023 shows that both the BJP and the Congress have lost a large share of ACs they won in 2018. If the 13 independent MLAs who joined the Congress government in 2018 are considered part of the party, the party can be considered to have won 113 assembly constituencies (ACs) in 2018. Of these 113 ACs, the party has lost 63 to the BJP and eight to others in 2023. This means that in 2023, the Congress lost 63% of the constituencies it won in 2018.

While the BJP has won the state, it was also not very popular in the seats it won in 2018. Of the 73 ACs the party won in 2018, it has lost 29 (40%) in this election (25 to the Congress and four to other parties). As the data above shows, a majority of its wins in this election (55%) have come in seats held by the Congress.

Because of a very high number of independent MLAs joining the Congress after winning in 2013 – most of them were rebel candidates who were not given the Congress ticket – such a comparison between 2013 and 2018 results is not possible.

However, a comparison of the 2018-23 flip with 2008-13 flips shows that the BJP’s latest victory is very different from what it achieved in 2013. In the 2013 election, the BJP had lost just 13 of the 78 ACs (17%) it had won in 2008. Apart from this, it also won 83 of 96 ACs held by the Congress. It was this combination of avoiding local anti-incumbency against its own MLAs and exploiting state-wide, perhaps even nation-wide anti-incumbency against the Congress that gave the BJP the biggest ever victory for any party in Rajasthan in the 2013 elections.

A comparison of flips between 2003 and 2008 elections is not possible because of the redrawing of AC boundaries in the 2008 delimitation.