BJP leads in Rajasthan, Congress trails

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was leading on 24 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan, while its ally Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) was ahead on one seat and the Congress was trailing on all the seats, vote count trends showed on Thursday.

The BJP was leading in Jodhpur, one of the most crucial seats, where Union Minister of State Gajendra Singh Shekhawat was ahead by 68,261 votes, leaving behind Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's son Vaibhav.

Union Minister of State Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore from Jaipur Rural was leading by 91,493 votes against Congress candidate Krishna Punia.

Rathore told the media: "In Rajasthan, we are leading on all seats and credit for the same goes to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In the last five years, we all worked hard under his leadership and voters hence trusted us.

"Congress in all these years had shown a bad picture of politics due to which people lost their trust in its working. However, after seeing Modi's work, they have instilled a huge trust in his working."

In Barmer, the BJP's Kailash Chaudhary was leading by 47,750 votes leaving behind Congress candidate Manvendra Singh, who is son of BJP veteran Jaswant Singh. Manvendra had joined the Congress ahead of the 2018 state Assembly elections.

The trend was similar in all the remaining seats.

While speaking to the media, Bikaner MP Arjun Ram Meghwal said that the people have trusted in Prime Minister Narendra Modi in these elections.

"I pay gratitude to all for giving a winning status to BJP. This election was meant for giving strong government and voters helped us in attaining our objective," he said.

BJP State president Madanlal Saini gave credit to booth workers who according to him ensured that party wins on all seats.

Congress Pradesh Congress Committee Vice President Archana Sharma said that these are initial rounds. "Lets wait till all rounds of counting are over."

Counting of votes for the 25 seats began at 8 a.m. The parliamentary elections in the state were held in two phases on April 29 and May 6.

( With inputs from IANS )