In a jolt to the Vasundhara Raje Government, the Opposition Congress today wrested three Assembly seats of Weir, Nasirabad and Surajgarh from the ruling BJP which could retain only the Kota seat.
Out of four Assembly seats which went to polls on September 13, BJP managed to win only one, bringing down its strength in the 200-member Rajastahn Assembly to 160 from 163.
In Nasirabad Assembly constituency, Congress candidate Ramnarayan Gujjar defeated BJP’s Sarita Gena by a margin of 386 votes. Ramnarayan got 66,648 votes, while BJP’s Sarita got 66,262 votes.
Congress regained its old scheduled caste seat of Weir with its candidate Bhajanlal defeating BJP veteran Gangaram Koli by 25,108 votes.
In Surajgarh Assembly constituency, BJP’s former minister Digamber Singh, who shifted from Bharatpur and is said to be Raje loyalist, lost to the Congress candidate.
Congress’ Shravan Kumar secured 70,527 votes, while Singh secured 67257 votes. With the victory in three seats, Congress tally in the Assembly is now 24.
BJP retained Kota city with party candidate Sandeep Sharma winning the Kota-South Assembly constituency by defeating Congress candidate Shivkant Nandwana by a margin of 25,707 votes. Sharma got 84,233 votes, while Shivkant got 58,526 votes.
Twenty-three candidates were in the fray, including four each of BJP, and Congress, and one CPI-ML.
The by-polls were necessitated after sitting MLAs Sanwar Lal Jat (Nasirabad), Om Birla (Kota-South), Santosh Ahlawat (Surajgarh) and Bahadur Singh Koli (Weir) resigned from the Assembly following their election to Lok Sabha.
Immediately after the Assembly polls in November last year in Rajasthan, BJP had won all 25 Lok Sabha seats in the State in May this year.