Nepotism, infighting cited as reasons for Congress’ loss in Raj panchayat polls

By Archana Sharma Jaipur, Dec 10 : The ruling Congress has suffered two massive defeats in Rajasthan within two years of forming the government. First, the humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha elections in May 2019 when it lost all the 25 seats in the state. And second, the defeat in the panchayat polls the results of which were announced on Wednesday.
Surprisingly, nepotism and infighting have again been quoted as the reasons for Congress’ defeat in the panchayat polls, which were earlier cited for the party’s massive loss in the Lok Sabha last year.
In the recently held panchayat polls, the BJP won 353 seats in zila parishad polls out of the 636 seats in 21 districts, while the Congress managed 252 seats. In the panchayat samiti polls, the BJP won 1,989 seats while the Congress managed 1,852 seats.
A senior Congress worker told IANS, “The local elections were held in 21 districts and over two crore voters cast their votes. Hence, these can’t be termed as small elections. Things have not changed since the Lok Sabha polls as nepotism and infighting have again been cited as the reasons for the loss in the local polls.” He said that the MLAs were given a free hand to distribute tickets and take all mileage, but they distributed tickets to their relatives.
“The grassroots workers were left demotivated and they were nowhere on the ground to lure the voters. Similar story was seen during the Lok Sabha polls when Ashok Gehlot gave ticket to his son Vaibhav Gehlot to contest from Jodhpur. This time, Congress MLA Krishna Poonia distributed tickets to her mother-in-law and sister-in-law while cabinet minister Saleh Mohammad gave tickets to his eight family members. These are just a few numbers as many more names might come out in this perspective,” he added.