Jaipur, Aug. 29 -- Rajasthan's upcoming civic and Panchayati Raj elections are shaping up as the first broad-based grassroots test of chief minister Bhajan Lal Sharma's government, nearly two-and-a-half years after it took office - and both the BJP and Congress are already treating the contest as a referendum on his record, claiming to have sway over the voters. The State Election Commission has begun the process for 309 urban local bodies, spanning 10,245 wards across the state - 10 municipal corporations, 47 municipal councils and 253 municipalities. Nominations opened on August 27 and run till August 31, though with Raksha Bandhan falling on August 28 and a Sunday on August 30, candidates effectively have only three working days - August 27, 29 and 31 - to file papers. The Panchayati Raj elections will extend the exercise deep into rural Rajasthan, making this the most extensive grassroots test the ruling party has faced in its current term. Political analyst Manish Godha called the elections a genuine litmus test for the chief minister, arguing that the government has now had enough time in office to be judged on delivery. The assembly bypolls that followed Sharma's elevation, he noted, offered little real basis for assessment, since the new government was still settling in. "This time, the situation is different. The government has completed around 2.5 years, giving it sufficient time to implement its policies and deliver on its promises," Godha said. He added that local body polls carry particular weight because, unlike assembly or Lok Sabha elections, they hand voters a more direct channel to register their verdict - on roads, drinking water, sanitation, streetlights, waste management and day-to-day local delivery. In his view, the results could effectively function as a referendum on the first half of Sharma's five-year term. A senior BJP leader pushed back on the "litmus test" framing, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The narrative and issues are different in every election - local, Panchayati Raj, assembly or Lok Sabha," he said, while conceding that a poor outcome would still be instructive. "If the results are negative, they point to lacunae which the government gets a chance to address," he said. BJP leaders point to the party's recent history in the state's biggest cities as grounds for confidence. Congress has consistently trailed in municipal corporation elections held in Rajasthan's major districts in recent years, while the BJP has dominated - corporations in Jodhpur, Jaipur, Kota, Bikaner, Ajmer and Udaipur have mostly elected BJP mayors, a pattern the party reads as evidence that urban voters continue to lean towards it. The BJP intends to fight the polls squarely on governance, foregrounding youth employment and its record on recruitment and examination reforms. A senior party leader said the government has made 189,000 appointments in 2.5 years, with 145,000 recruitments currently under process and a recruitment calendar for a further 125,000 posts already issued for 2026. The party is amplifying this alongside its "zero paper leak" claim and its welfare and development record. BJP state general secretary Shravan Singh Bagdi said there was "unprecedented enthusiasm" among party workers and a positive mood among voters. He credited chief minister Sharma's welfare initiatives over the past 31 months, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 12-year governance record, and the party's continuous grassroots activity for the momentum. He also invoked Congress's prior stint running local bodies in the state, claiming it had left civic bodies in disarray and urban development stalled - grievances he said still rankle with the public. Divisional-level BJP meetings are being held in Jaipur on August 27, 28 and 29 to finalise candidate selection and strategy, with leaders saying the emphasis is on ward-by-ward assessment and giving organisational workers a chance to contest. Reports from the party headquarters suggest the chief minister himself was present past midnight on Thursday, working through selection details with senior leaders. Congress is working just as hard to turn local grievances into an anti-incumbency wave. Leader of the Opposition in the Rajasthan assembly, Tikaram Jully, launched a sharp attack on the state government ahead of the civic polls, challenging BJP leaders to seek votes on their actual record rather than, as he put it, resorting to the politics of Hindu-Muslim division the party is known for. Jully said ordinary citizens are searching for BJP leaders to help resolve basic problems but find them missing in action - only for those same leaders to resurface now that elections are near. He said people are openly asking why, despite years of BJP rule, broken roads, choked sewers, garbage and non-functional streetlights remain unaddressed even as BJP leaders repeat their "double-engine government" refrain without fixing anything on the ground. The coming civic polls, Jully said, will serve as a report card on the BJP government's failures, with a public he described as fed up with broken promises and sluggish governance ready to "teach the BJP a lesson." Former chief minister Ashok Gehlot, in a post on social media, said the mood in favour of Congress ahead of the civic polls was the strongest he had seen in years, with public sentiment clearly tilted toward the party and victory all but assured. He called on workers to set aside personal rivalries over ticket distribution, arguing that winning individual wards - regardless of who gets the nomination - is essential for Congress to form municipal boards. "Whoever gets the ticket, it is the duty of all of us as workers to put in everything we have for them. The party is bigger than all of us, and the party's interest must be everyone's interest," Gehlot wrote, adding that he had proposed the same formula for the Jodhpur Municipal Corporation. Congress is nonetheless contending with the familiar headache of managing a large pool of ticket aspirants and competing factional interests at the local level. The BJP's record in Assembly bypolls held during the Sharma government has been mixed. In 2024, the party won five of seven seats, while Congress took Dausa and the Bharat Adivasi Party held Chaurasi. The setback came in 2025, when BJP lost the Anta Assembly seat to Congress. The civic and panchayat polls now give the BJP a chance to show that the Anta defeat was an isolated dip rather than a sign of eroding grassroots strength - while a strong showing for Congress would hand the party a badly needed organisational boost heading into the 2028 Assembly election. The outcome will ultimately hinge on more than the state government's record alone - local civic issues, candidate selection, caste and community arithmetic, organisational strength and ward-level sentiment will all play a part. The results may not add up to a clean verdict on Bhajan Lal Sharma. But with his government now past the midpoint, the pattern of wins and losses across cities and villages will offer the clearest grassroots signal yet on how his tenure is being judged....