Jaipur: After a string of electoral losses last year, the Congress party’s recent victory in the by-election for the Anta assembly constituency in Rajasthan has come as a shot in the arm for the principal opposition party in the desert state.

In the Anta bypoll – the results of which were declared on November 14 – Congress leader and former minister Pramod Jain Bhaya emerged victorious by a margin of over 15,000 votes, defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) candidate Morpal Suman and independent candidate Naresh Meena, who polled more than 53,000 votes each.

The by-election in Anta was a crucial electoral test for the Congress, which earlier could win only one out of seven by-election seats back in November last year.

The grand old party faced a tough contest in Anta in wake of a star-studded campaigning by the ruling BJP where incumbent chief minister Bhajan Lal Sharma and former chief minister Vasundhara Raje hit the streets together to garner support for Suman, the party’s candidate.

On the other hand, Meena, a former Congress leader who has contested three elections as an independent in the last two years and earned the reputation of being an enfant terrible who nevertheless can pull large crowds, threatened to eat into the party’s votes.

In the run-up to the by-polls, Rajasthan Congress president Govind Singh Dotasra had stated that its results will decide who will form the government in 2028.

Ex and incumbent CM campaign for BJP; challenge from independent candidate

The by-election in Anta was necessitated after BJP MLA from the constituency Kanwarlal Meena was disqualified under the Representation of the People (RP) Act 1951. Meena’s disqualification took place after he was convicted in a 20-year-old case of assault on a public servant.

In the 2023 assembly elections, Kanwarlal Meena had wrested the Anta seat from Congress heavyweight Bhaya, who at the time was a cabinet minister in the then Ashok Gehlot-led government.

Subsequently, as the by-election was announced after his disqualification, the Congress once again nominated Bhaya, who holds considerable clout in the region and has won the Anta seat thrice in the past.

However, what threatened to derail the party’s fortunes was the entry of Naresh Meena, a former Congress member who in recent times has emerged as a rebel figure after leading several movements.

Last year, Meena had contested the by-elections from Deoli-Uniara constituency in Tonk district as an independent after being denied a Congress ticket. The Congress candidate was relegated to the third position as Meena had finished second, polling over 59,000 votes, while the BJP won the seat.

Earlier, during the 2023 assembly elections, Meena had contested as an independent candidate from the Chhabra constituency in Baran district and had finished third, getting over 43,000 votes.

Meena, who has twice been jailed in the recent past – first after assaulting a public servant in the run-up to the Deoli-Uniara bypolls last year and earlier this year for protesting in Jhalawar district where seven children had died after the collapse of a government school building – had once again decided to contest the Anta by-elections as an independent after the Congress didn’t consider his candidature.

His rising popularity, a campaign that made substantial clamour on social media and the fact that Anta has a large number of voters from the Meena community had at one point become a worry for Congress. Meena also roped in leaders from other parties including Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) supremo and Nagaur MP Hanuman Beniwal, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh and former minister Rajendra Singh Gudha to campaign for him.

On the other hand, the ruling BJP had centred its campaign around the clean image of its candidate and local leader Morpal Suman, who is from the Mali community, another important voter group in the constituency.

Baran district, of which Anta is a part, is considered to be a stronghold of former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje. At present her son Dushyant Singh is the incumbent MP from Jhalawar-Baran and has been elected to the parliament five times from the region. Raje herself is an MLA from the Jhalrapatan constituency in the neighbouring Jhalawar district.

The BJP had left no stones unturned during the campaigning phase. One of the defining images from the Anta bypolls was the sight of Raje and Sharma, the former and incumbent chief ministers of Rajasthan, travelling together and appealing to the public to vote for Suman, the BJP's candidate.

The BJP had hoped to repeat its performance in 2023, when it had wrested the seat from the Congress by defeating Bhaya.

Win bolsters Congress’s narrative of public’s dissatisfaction with BJP government

As the results came in on November 14, it became evident that the Congress was at a clear advantage, with Bhaya maintaining a lead since the early rounds of counting. At the end, Bhaya clinched victory by polling a total of 69,462 votes followed by BJP’s Suman who received 53,858 votes and independent candidate Meena, who trailed Suman closely with 53,740 votes.

Despite his defeat, Meena once again demonstrated his ability to draw large chunks of votes from different constituencies, a fact that hasn’t gone unnoticed by either the Congress or the BJP. Meena is unlikely to abandon his ambition to become a legislator and is expected to maintain his image as the rebel raising issues important to the public in the next three years till the 2028 assembly elections.

After the Anta by-election loss, the BJP, which has a comfortable majority in the state assembly won’t face any challenge in the functioning of the government.

However, the fact that Congress made a comeback despite the bigwigs of the saffron party putting their full weight behind Suman, is a reminder that the state’s public, who in recent times has voted out the incumbent government every five years, is not to be taken as granted.

The win is also a definite improvement from the position the Congress was in November last year, when it had conceded three seats which it held to the BJP in the by-elections. Gauging the importance of the Anta by-elections, all big leaders of the Congress including former chief minister Ashok Gehlot, former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot, state president Dotasra and other senior party functionaries had camped in Anta and held rallies in support of Bhaya.

In recent times, the Congress has repeatedly said that there is widespread dissatisfaction among the public over the functioning of the chief minister Sharma-led BJP government in the state, and the by-election win just before the two-year anniversary of the state government will help the party to bolster this narrative.

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