Jhalrapatan Assembly constituency Rajasthan 2018: It is ‘Yes’ for Vasundhara, ‘No’ For BJP

Jhalrapatan constituency seat from Jhalawad region in Rajasthan is ruled by BJP through the years. Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje is MLA from Jhalrapatan constituency for last three consecutive terms. She became the first woman chief minister of the state in the year 2003, this seat may be termed as a BJP stronghold or more accurately a Vasundhara Stronghold.

The Jhalrapatan constituency had witnessed Congress and BJP rule from last few decades. It hardly gave chance to any other party rather than BJP and Congress to head the constituency in the last three decades. Since Vasundhara came into power from 2003, she has been continuously winning the seat. Before this, the constituency was clinched by Mohanlal of Congress party in 1998 from BJP, which was in power here from 1990 to 1998 and Anang Kumar served the constituency.The male constitute 52% of the population while female are 48% in number. A good percentage of women voters definitely have the power to turn the dice.As per 2011 census, the population here is 391746, of which 70.07 percent is rural and 29.93 percent is urban. At the same time, 17.67 percent of the total population is Scheduled Castes and 8.5 percent Scheduled Tribes.

In 2013, Vasundhara Raje won the seat over Meenakshi Chandrawat of Congress. Though Meenakshi also hails from royal family of Harigarh but could not stand with Vasundhara’s wave. Raje won the seat over Meenakshi with a huge margin of 60896 votes. Vasundhara got 114384 votes while Meenakshi obtained 53488 votes. A big player has emerged in this election was NOTA which bagged No. 3 spot neutralizing 3723 votes.

Vasundhara Raje has a strong hold in the constituency and has been chosen for three consecutive years. At this point of time, one might wonder what are those factors that are responsible for Vasundhara to clinch back the traditional seat of BJP. Here are few points to be mentioned, first, the Gwalior royal family has a stronghold in the constituency being situated at the border of Madhya Pradesh. Besides this, Vasundhara also benefitted from loss done by Congress in the constituency. Third, the women voter in the constituency is quite high that might have supported Raje to some extent.

There are chances that this time too Vasundhara Rajecould make it. But in this election, nothing could be predicted. Since Modi government is in power but the election analysis predicts that the Modi wave has lost its power and it would not easy for BJP to sail through the elections just on the name of Namo.