In the run-up to the seven Assembly bypolls in Rajasthan on November 13, the BJP seems to have the upper hand though it holds only one of the seven constituencies. In contrast, the Congress that looked set to have a good show has seemingly lost momentum. This parallels last year’s Assembly elections in which the party looked set to give BJP a tough fight but eventually lost the momentum closer to the polls and had to contend with just 69 seats out of 200, compared to BJP’s 115.

Before the Haryana Assembly elections results in October, Congress had the upper hand in the state, where it holds four of the bypoll seats. Its Lok Sabha election allies Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP) and Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) hold one constituency each. However, the momentum the Congress gained after the parliamentary elections — the party opened its account for the first time in a decade and the BJP dropped 10 of its 25 parliamentary seats — and beyond seemed to have been lost after its Haryana debacle. Then, the alliance with the BAP and the RLP also fell through.

With the BAP, it was largely due to its ambitions as it wanted more than its Chorasi seat and the Congress too was wary of the BAP’s rising graph. With the RLP, it was partly due to party chief Hanuman Beniwal’s mercurial nature; he had been taking potshots at state Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasra and the two also seem to be locked in an intra-caste struggle.

However, the consensus in Congress seems to be that the lack of alliance was intentional and is good as it ensures the local units stay strong. “The alliance in the Lok Sabha polls was to defeat the BJP. But we have local units in all these constituencies. Tying up with the RLP or the BAP would have affected our local leadership,” said a Congress leader.

But while the BJP contained its rebels, the Congress lost Durg Singh — he contested as an Independent in 2023 too — to the BJP in the key seat of Khinvsar. In Devli Uniara, denied a ticket by the Congress again, Naresh Meena is contesting as an independent and is claiming the support of the BAP, the RLP, and others, while former Congress minister Rajendra Gudha has thrown his hat in the ring from Jhunjhunu. However, Jhunjhunu is not Gudha’s traditional Udaipurwati seat.

On its part, the BJP seems to have learnt its lessons from the parliamentary elections. And compared to the Assembly polls, it has been able to micromanage these seats better, by controlling the rebellions by Jai Ahuja (Ramgarh), Bablu Chaudhary (Jhunjhunu), and Narendra Meena (Salumber), while also inducting Durg Singh to bolster its prospects in Khinvsar, which the Beniwal family has been winning since its creation in 2008.

Ahuja pulling out of the race makes it an uphill task for the Congress in Ramgarh. There, Zubair Khan had benefitted from a division of votes in 2023. While Khan polled 93,765 votes, the BJP’s Sukhavant Singh had polled 74,069, and Ahuja 34,882. In 2018 too, Khan’s wife Shafia Zubair had gained from division within the BJP camp, caused by the rebellion of BJP’s Jagat Singh who contested on a BSP ticket.

Similarly in Jhunjhunu, the BJP candidate and the BJP rebel together polled over 1 lakh votes in 2023, over 13,000 more than Congress’s Brijendra Singh Ola, who is now a Lok Sabha MP. Moreover, the Congress’s candidates in Ramgarh and Jhunjhunu, Khan’s son Aryaan Zubair and Amit Ola, are fresh faces and it is not clear how this will play out for them. However, Aryaan is expected to get some sympathy votes on account of his father’s demise, which necessitated the bypoll, and Jhunjhunu is seen as the Ola family stronghold.

Additionally, the BJP may benefit from being the ruling party, the promise of 4 lakh government jobs, crackdown on paper leaks, and issuing a recruitment calendar for the next several months, the Eastern Rajasthan Canal Project (ERCP) — covering the bypoll seats of Dausa, Ramgarh, and Devli Uniara — and the proposed December investment summit.

Moreover, unlike the Lok Sabha polls, there is better coordination between the government and the party, with Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma close to completing a year in power. On Sunday, BJP state president Madan Rathore said that he and CM Bhajan Lal Sharma “are working like brothers.”

Two of Congress’s top leaders are also occupied with Maharashtra. The party has appointed three-time Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot as AICC senior observer for the Mumbai and Konkan divisions while Sachin Pilot has been appointed as AICC senior observer for the Marathwada division. Pilot is scheduled to kick off with a day-long campaign in Dausa.

Despite the challenges, Congress leaders are still hopeful of retaining all four seats. “The Congress had four of these seats and we will win all four. The BJP has been making more noise since it’s the ruling party while we have been working on the ground quietly,” said a Congress leader. Bar Ramgarh and Dausa, there is a triangular fight on the other five seats.

BJP spokesperson Laxmikant Bhardwaj said, “In the last 10 months, the people of Rajasthan have seen CM Bhajan Lal’s work and hence they are supporting him and the party. The Congress’s deceit has been exposed and it didn’t even leave its allies BAP and RLP. The BJP will win all seven seats.”