The result of the Rajasthan assembly election has been finalised, with the Congress falling just one short of the 100-seat majority mark, in the 199-seat strong Rajasthan assembly. The ruling BJP party won 73 seats and the state's senior Congress leaders have expressed "confidence" of forming the next government of the state. Vasundhara Raje handed her resignation as chief minister of Rajasthan. A meeting on Wednesday will lead to a decision as to who will occupy the chief minister's seat from the Congress in Rajasthan.
Rahul Gandhi addressed a press conference sometime back saying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had "failed to listen to the heartbeat of the nation." Mr Gandhi also said that "I was telling my mother that the absolute best thing for me was the 2014 election. I learnt a lot from that election. I learnt that the most important thing is humility," said the 48-year-old Congress chief, who took a lot of the blame for the party's non-stop election disasters. "Frankly Narendra Modi taught me the lesson- what not to do," he added.
PM Modi, in a series of tweets, has said that "we (BJP) accept the people's mandate with humility. I thank the people of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan for giving us the opportunity to serve these states."
Vasundhara Raje, Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot all won their respective seats of Jhalrapatan, Tonk and Sardarpura. Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot have both said that the Congress will form the government in Rajasthan.
Sachin Pilot thanked the people for their support and said that the Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government has betrayed the leader. Amid his reported rivalry with Sachin Pilot, senior Congress leader Ashok Gehlot said Congress chief Rahul Gandhi will decide who will become the state's chief minister.
The Congress has banked on the desert state's 'revolving door' anti-incumbency factor and the BJP had stated that it would break the state's tradition of having chief ministers of alternate parties for every assembly election since 1993.
NDTV's poll of exit polls says that the Congress will snatch power from the BJP and win 110 of the 199 assembly seats, just 10 above the majority mark requisite to form government. NDTV's poll of polls predicts the BJP would win only 78 seats.
The fate of Rajasthan's around 2,274 candidates, 189 of whom are women, will be decided by the state's 4.74 crore electorate, of which 74.21 per cent turned up to vote for the state elections, which were held on December 7.