Jaipur: The newly formed Bharatiya Janata Party government in Rajasthan has got a major setback as Congress candidate Rupendra Singh Kunnar has won the postponed election of the Sri Karanpur assembly seat of Rajasthan.
He has defeated Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Surendra Pal Singh TT by more than 11000 votes. Kunnar got 94761 votes and TT got 83500 votes. This is being taken as a big blow to the new government of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the sense that the party administered the oath of office to the party candidate Surendra Pal Singh TT and gave him departments like agricultural marketing and Indira Gandhi Canal. This was done in the name of a constitutional provision Under Article 164 (4) that allows any person to hold the post of minister for 6 months without being elected.
But the people of Sri Karanpur followed the sympathy card played by the Congress who fielded Rupendra Singh Kunnar, son of sitting MLA Gurmeet Singh Kunnar who died during the election and the polling had to be postponed here.
Sri Karanpur's seat is considered to be a seat that goes with the government but this time the voters changed the trend here and gave a setback to the ruling BJP who was hoping for a comfortable win after making the party candidate a minister.
During the counting, the Congress candidate lagged in the first round but after that, his lead kept increasing in every round and the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate finally had to face defeat.
The seat is near to Punjab and Aam Aadmi Party has also some influence here. The AAP candidate has got more than 11000 votes and played a major role in the defeat of the BJP on the seat.
Due to the ministership of the candidate, the election became prestigious and all prominent leaders of both ies including CM Bhajan Lal Sharma and some of his ministers and former CM Ashok Gehlot and PCC president Govind Singh Dotasara had campaigned here.
Will TT resign?
After the election results, now the focus is on whether Surendra Pal Singh will resign from the post of TT minister. According to the rules, he can remain a minister for six months and during this time he can contest the elections once again and become an MLA, but now the elections have been held on all the 200 seats and for him to contest the elections, the party has to vacate the seat of one of its MLAs.
Big victory as per Lok Sabha elections
Although there is no threat to the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Rajasthan due to the victory of Congress, but Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress parties have to go for Lok Sabha elections only after 2 months and before that this victory will boost the Congress workers.
Gehlot, Dotasara congratulated, Joshi accepted the defeat
Former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Congress State President Govind Singh Dotasara congratulated Rupinder Singh Kunnar on his victory.
Dotasara said that it has been a month since the government was formed, but it has done nothing other than to change the names of our schemes. 'The public has made it clear that the government can appoint ministers but cannot appoint MLAs.' said Dotasara.
BJP state president CP Joshi said that the party will review the reasons for the defeat.
