Amid a saffron surge, Congress on Friday suffered a complete rout in Rajasthan failing to open its account for the first time in the last two-and-a-half decades, while the ruling BJP in the desert state bagged all 25 seats.
The BJP, which had decimated the Congress in the last December's Assembly election, consolidated its gains with Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje leading the party's 'Mission 25' to make a spirited comeback after bagging just four seats in 2009.
Rebel BJP leader Jaswant Singh was trounced while Congress stalwarts and Union ministers Sachin Pilot, Jitendra Singh, Chandresh Kumari, Namonarayan Meena and Girija Vyas, and six sitting Congress MPs including CP Joshi too taste defeats as the party was unable to hold on to the 20 seats it had won last time.
Though in the 1989 Lok Sabha polls BJP had won 13, Janata Dal 11 and CPI(M) one, and the Congress lost all 25 seats in Rajasthan, and this time too the Congress lost all the seats, but at BJP's gain.
Before 1989, the Congress had secured one out of 25 Lok Sabha seats in 1977, when former Prime Minister Choudhary Charan Singh's Bharatiya Lok Dal had won 24 seats in the state. Congress's Nathu Ram Mirdha had won from Rajasthan's Nagaur seat and Gargishankar Mishra from Madhya Pradesh.
BJP candidates Santosh Ahalwat in Jhunjhunu, Chandra Prakash Joshi in Chittorgarh, Dushyant Singh in Jhalawar-Baran, Nihal Chand in Ganganagar, Arjun Lal Meena in Udaipur, Gopal Singh Shekhawat in Rajsamand, Subhash Baheria in Bhilwara, Devji Patel in Jalore, and Arjun Meghwal in Bikaner won their seats with huge margins.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhra Raje, who came up with the 'Mission 25', said, "The congratulations are not due to me but they are due to the public who voted for us. I am getting the news that the situation across the country is similar as it is in Rajasthan."
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