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Congress wins Rajasthan by-polls; Rahul lauds state unit

In Ajmer, Raghu Sharma of the Congress defeated his BJP rival Ram Swaroop Lamba.

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Both the seats had gone for bypolls on 29 January along with an assembly seat.

Rajasthan, like Gujarat, had given the BJP a clean sweep in the 2014 parliamentary polls.

In Mandalgarh, Congress rebel Gopal Malviya gave a scare to the party’s official candidate Vivek Dhakar by cornering over 40000 votes.

The Congress is rapidly gaining ground in Rajasthan with its young turk Sachin Pilot in the driver’s seat. Raje and her cabinet was in Ajmer for just last two weeks, using every trick in the book to manipulate the mandate but you can not supress the voice of the people.

The Congress is all set to shock BJP in Rajasthan, which is being ruled by the Saffroan party.

Asked whether the Congress would name a chief ministerial candidate before the polls in Rajasthan, Pilot said, “We as a party have traditionally not done this”.

While it is clear that the Vasundhara Raje government is facing strong anti-incumbency, the Congress is in a position to exploit the situation because of the presence of strong local leaders. Unemployment is hurting the youth. Citing trends from 17 Assembly seats, the poll pundit said that Congress would manage to swing 119 seats in its favor, while the BJP would lose 109. By afternoon, the party had already won Mandalgarh Assembly seat and now is on its way to clinching Alwar and Ajmer Lok Sabha seats. “TMC won both the Noapara and Uluberia by-elections”. The beneficiary is the Congress because in that state there is a virtual direct contest, with other parties being of no outcome. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress is leading in both the seats. Karan Singh (INC) – 226592 and Jaswant Yadav (BJP) -178304, Nota – 6173. Ajmer North – Congress ahead of 2916 votes. The so-called groups in the Congress party, is a propaganda that BJP spreads. Congress lead by 22651 votes. In Alwar, it was a cakewalk for the Congress. Congress leads by 39246 votes. Sachin Pilot had lost Ajmer in 2014 by a margin of over 2 lakh votes.

Establishing connect with party workers was the most important aspect of revamping the Congress in Rajasthan.

From Mandalgarh, Hadda was leading by 4,000 votes, the poll official said. There was an unprecedented swing of votes in all these seats which we lost by big margins earlier.

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According to the Election Commission, Mr Dhakad bagged 70,146 votes while Mr Hada got 57,170 votes.

Rajasthan Byelections Congress candidate Vivek Dhakad wins Mandalgarh assembly seat by 12976 votes