Gehlot said the Pradesh Congress Committee should have organised roadshows and mounted a more assertive campaign in response to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s election drive led by Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma and other senior leaders. He also pointed to the unusually strong performance of Independent candidates and asked why Congress had failed to convert what he described as anti-government sentiment into a larger electoral gain.
“Had there been proper planning, I believe the anti-government sentiment would have benefited the Congress. We could have won more seats,” Gehlot said while assessing the outcome.
His comments have put the focus on campaign management within the Rajasthan Congress after the BJP finished ahead in the urban contests but with a narrow lead in vote share. Results had been declared in 10,235 of 10,244 wards, with the BJP winning 4,179 seats, Congress 3,613 and Independents 2,273.
The BJP secured 35.18 per cent of the vote against Congress’s 34.24 per cent, leaving a gap of 0.94 percentage points. Independents polled 27.38 per cent, a sizeable share that affected contests across several towns and cities and left many civic bodies without an outright majority for either major party.
Gehlot said the scale of Independent victories required examination by Congress, particularly after the party’s organisational expansion under its Sangathan Srijan programme. He questioned whether the network created through the initiative had been used effectively during the campaign and whether local mobilisation matched the intensity of the BJP’s election effort.
The former chief minister’s intervention also drew attention to the distribution of campaign responsibilities within the state unit. Rajasthan Congress president Govind Singh Dotasara and Leader of the Opposition Tikaram Jully were among the principal figures in the campaign, while Gehlot and several leaders associated with his camp had a more limited role in strategy and candidate selection.
Gehlot did not directly challenge the state leadership, but his remarks indicated dissatisfaction with the tactical choices made during the contest. He specifically cited the absence of sufficiently visible counter-campaigning when BJP leaders held roadshows and public programmes.
Congress nevertheless remained competitive across the state, with the small vote-share gap showing that the two main parties drew broadly comparable levels of support. The BJP emerged as the leading party in more urban local bodies, while Congress headed the tally in a substantial number and Independents became pivotal in several councils where neither side secured a majority.
At the level of individual urban bodies, the BJP emerged as the largest party in 148 of the 309 institutions for which results were available, while Congress led in 104 and the two parties were tied as the largest group in 10. The figures underlined the fragmented nature of the mandate: ward victories did not automatically produce control of a board, particularly where Independents held the balance. That arithmetic has made post-poll negotiations crucial in councils where no party reached the required majority on its own after ward-level counting was completed.
The results were declared after voting across Rajasthan’s urban bodies in two phases on September 9 and 11. More than 1.44 crore voters were eligible to participate in elections covering municipal corporations, municipal councils and municipalities.
The BJP secured clear majorities in four municipal corporations — Jaipur, Bhilwara, Kota and Udaipur — while Congress won control in Bikaner. Independent candidates performed strongly in Bharatpur, the home district of Chief Minister Sharma, and also emerged as influential players in a number of smaller urban bodies.
The performance of Independents has complicated the next stage of forming municipal boards and choosing mayors and chairpersons. Several bodies produced fractured verdicts, increasing the importance of councillors elected outside the two principal parties.
