Rajasthan Assembly Election 2023: Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Sunday submitted his resignation to Governor Kalraj Mishra after the defeat of Congress in Rajasthan Assembly elections.
The BJP is leading on 115 seats while Congress was leading on 70 seats and other candidates were ahead on 14 seats. The election was held on 199 Assembly seats out of a total 200.
The state voted on November 25.
The BJP crossed the halfway mark in Rajasthan, winning 106 seats out of the 199 where assembly elections took place. The Congress, which was hoping to buck the trend of the incumbent being voted out in the state every five years, bagged 60 seats and was ahead in nine.
As the Congress faced defeat in Rajasthan, outgoing Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said the poll results were "unexpected for everyone" but rejected suggestions that bringing forward "new faces" would have helped the party retain power.
He lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, alleging they incited people in the name of religion during the election campaign. The Congress leader said that he had expected that the people of the state would take "revenge" on the BJP leaders but it did not happen.
In a post on X, Gehlot said, "We humbly accept the mandate given by the people of Rajasthan. This is an unexpected result for everyone. This defeat shows that we were not completely successful in taking our plans, laws and innovations to the public."
Later, talking to reporters, Gehlot said that they would go into the reasons behind the adverse election results in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
Replying to a question on whether a change of face in the elections might have brought a positive result, Gehlot said that it would be wrong to say that bringing new faces might have made the party win the elections.
"There was talk of bringing new faces, and new faces should come, but this demand was not there in MP and Chhattisgarh and still we lost the election. It would be wrong to say that we would have won the election if new faces were brought."
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