Rajkumar Roat of the Congress-backed Bharat Adivasi Party won Rajasthan’s Banswara Lok Sabha seat by 2,47,054 votes, the Election Commission data showed.

He was up against the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya, who had defected to the Hindutva party from the Congress in February. Roat secured 8,20,831 votes while Malviya got 5,73,777 votes.

Roat was also contesting against the Congress’s Arvind Sita Damor, who secured only 61,211 votes. Damor had refused to withdraw his nomination despite his party’s alliance with the Bharat Adivasi Party.

As a result, the Congress found itself campaigning for Roat and against Damor. The Congress said it had decided to support Roat to protect the Constitution.

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The Banswara seat, with a substantial Adivasi population, has been a Congress stronghold. However, it was won by the BJP’s Kanak Mal Katara in the 2019 general election. The seat, which went to polls in the second phase on April 26, is reserved for a member of the Scheduled Tribes.

At an election rally in Banswara on April 21, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had claimed the Congress manifesto had promised to seize and redistribute private wealth of Indians among “infiltrators” and “those who have more children” – a dog whistle reference to India’s Muslims.

In the same speech, the prime minister claimed that the Congress would snatch away the mangalsutras worn by married Hindu women in its bid to distribute wealth among Muslims.

Scroll has repeatedly debunked Modi’s untruthful claims that pit India’s Muslims against other disadvantaged communities.

Also read: Fact-checking five days of Narendra Modi’s speeches: A catalogue of lies

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