With 23 seats, saffron wave sweeps Jodhpur

Jodhpur: Voters of Ashok Gehlot's hometown, Sardarpura, did not repose trust in guarantees proposed by the former chief minister in this election. Though Gehlot managed to win from his constituency, Sardarpura, he could only post a margin of just 26,396 votes, which is far below the margin of 45,597 votes in previous election, defeating BJP’s Mahendra Singh Rathore.Except Sardarpura, Congress could win only Bhopalgarh constituency, where Geeta Barwad, daughter of former veteran Narpat Ram Barwad, defeated RLPs’ Pukhraj Garg by 24,298 votes. BJP won 8 out of 10 seats in the district including Osian, where Divya Maderna of Congress lost to BJPs' Bheraram Siyol by 2,807 votes.BJP has snatched 6 seats from Congress including Osian, Luni, Jodhpur City, Shergarh, Lohawat and Bilara, while retaining Phalodi and Soorsagar. Soorsagar has posted the victory with the largest margin of a whopping 38,759 votes, where BJP’s Devendra Joshi defeated Congress’s fresher Shehjad Khan, son of the former candidate and RPSC member Ayub Khan. BJP had fielded Joshi from here, dropping 3 time veteran Suryakanta Vyas. Of the total 33 seats in six districts of Jodhpur division, Congress clinched 16 seats, BJP won 14 seats while 2 seats went to Independents and 1 to RLP in the 2018 election.BJP has succeeded in snatching 9 seats from Congress, taking its tally to 23 in this election, while restricting Congress to just 7 seats. Independents won 3 seats while RLP failed to open an account in the entire division despite giving a tough fight on the Baytoo seat in Barmer.While BJP has retained 5 seats in Pali and 2 seats in Sirohi, it gained lead in Jaisalmer by winning both Jaisalmer and Pokhran seats and by winning 4 seats in Barmer compared to just 1 in the last election. The party has, however, sustained loss of 2 seats Sanchore and Raniwara in Jalore. In Sanchore MP candidate Devji Patel lost to independent Jivaram Choudhary. The BJP sustained major losses in Pali where its 5 time MLA Gyanchand Parakh lost to Congress’s Bhimraj Bhati, in Bhinmal where its 4 time MLA Pooraram Choudhary lost to Congress’s Samrjeet Singh while in Reodar its 4 time MLA Jagsi Ram Koli lost to Congress’s fresher Moti Ram Koli. At the same time, the party lost 3 seats in total to rebel candidates which included Sanchore in Jalore, Sheo and Barmer. Sheo, one of the hot seats this election, has been snatched by Ravindra Singh Bhati from Congress’s 5 timer Amen Khan in a multilateral fight among 5 candidates. Similarly, Congress has managed to snatch 4 seats from BJP, which include Pali, Raniwara, Bhinmal and Reodar.