Rajasthan assembly Speaker C P Joshi is the slender thread that stands between a Congress and BJP government
The Congress is yet to declare candidates on a majority seats as its Central Election Committee will meet on Sunday to finalise names for more seats.
"I sometimes think of leaving it, but the chief minister's post doesn't leave me," Ashok Gehlot famously said earlier this year, in part as a signal to the Congress top brass not to pick someone else for the job if the party wins the assembly polls.
Along with Sharma, Diya Kumari and Prem Chand Bairwa, who were named as deputy chief ministers in the recently held Bharatiya Janata Party legislature party meeting, will take oath.
The MPs who win assembly polls will have to quit one of their seats in the next 14 days.
Shinde welcomed the former Rajasthan minister to the Shiv Sena and said Gudha left the ministerial position for the cause of people.
'The water crisis is so obvious that people see no point begging for it from politicians.'
First-time MLA Rekha Gupta will be the new chief minister of Delhi, capping 11 days of suspense over who will get the top post after the Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power after over 26 years ending the 10-year rule of the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party.
"All legislators will remain united and stay together till August 14," Congress chief whip Mahesh Joshi said after the CLP meeting chaired by Gehlot.
The BJP is considering having two deputy chief ministers in the new Delhi government to represent the city as a "mini" India, party leaders said. The move is aimed at accommodating MLAs from different castes, communities, and regional backgrounds. The proposal is under consideration by the national leadership, which will also decide on the chief minister and other ministers. The process of government formation is expected to gain momentum after Prime Minister Narendra Modi returns from his foreign visit over the weekend.
At the mega auction, Mumbai Indians made some strategic buys, in a bid to build a strong team around their solid Indian core consisting of Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Jaspreet Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, and Tilak Varma.
In the last six assembly elections, the state voted the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress to power alternately.
The BJP is hopeful of improving its performance in Dalit-dominated constituencies in Delhi ahead of the February 5 assembly polls, following a sustained outreach campaign. The party failed to win any of the 12 SC reserved constituencies in the 2015 and 2020 elections. The party has been out of power in the city since 1998.
The meeting was attended by Congress in-charge for Rajasthan Sukhjinder Randhawa, CM Gehlot, RPCC president Govind Singh Dotasra and other leaders.
The MLAs inducted into the Rajasthan cabinet are Meena, Madan Dilawar, Rathore, Gajendra Singh Khimsar, Babulal Kharadi, Jogaram Patel, Suresh Singh Rawat, Avinash Gehlot, Joraram Kumawat, Hemant Meena, Kanhaiya Lal Choudhary and Sumit Godara.
The BJP has played the social engineering card in Rajasthan with an eye on the Lok Sabha election where the party will try and retain all the 25 seats that it had won in the 2014 and 2019 elections.
Sources said the leadership of the government going forward, if Gehlot is elected as party chief, is likely to be on the meeting agenda.
A high-level committee on Thursday recommended simultaneous elections for Lok Sabha and state assemblies as the first step followed by synchronised local body polls within 100 days.
With the party fielding three Union ministers, besides four other MPs, as candidates in the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls, it may continue with the strategy in Rajasthan.
While condemning the incident of Manipur where two women were paraded naked and molested, Modi on Thursday made a reference to states like Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in context of law and order.
Since 1993, when the BJP came to power after a stint of President's rule, the state has alternated between the Congress and the BJP.
Union minister and the BJP's election in-charge for Rajasthan Pralhad Joshi, co-in-charge Nitin Patel, the party's in-charge for Rajasthan Arun Singh, state president C P Joshi, Union ministers Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Arjun Ram Meghwal and Kailash Chaudhary, Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly Rajendra Rathore, Deputy Leader of Opposition and former state president Satish Poonia and other leaders were present at the meeting, which is likely to continue till late, the sources said.
The BJP holds 28 of the 59 Rajya Sabha seats that will soon face election.
Nearly 3,000 polling booths have been identified as sensitive, and special security arrangements, including drone surveillance, have been ensured at some of these locations.
Singh, a veteran Congress leader, was a member of the Upper House of Parliament from Assam for almost three decades.
The Rajasthan government has rechristened the state tourism corporation's well-known Hotel Khadim in Ajmer as 'Ajaymeru' with an aim to preserve the cultural heritage of the city, according to an official order.
The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
Rajasthan Congress leaders Jyoti Mirdha and Sawai Singh Chaudhary switched to the Bharatiya Janata Party in Jaipur on Monday ahead of assembly elections due later this year.
First-time MLA Bhajan Lal Sharma was sworn in as the chief minister of Rajasthan at a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party's top leadership on Friday, 12 days after the party ousted the Congress in the assembly polls.
On the eve of the counting of votes in Rajasthan, both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress have started reaching out to independent candidates, including rebels, and smaller parties.
With no apparent wave on the ground or pressing everyday issues, that's what it boils down for voters as Rajasthan readies for assembly polls this week.
Sources said the party has also tasked its senior leaders to be observers at the meeting of the Congress Legislature Party in Haryana to elect its new leader.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Friday sacked Rajendra Gudha as minister of state, hours after he cornered the state government in the assembly.
Ahead of the assembly polls in Rajasthan, the Congress government on Saturday night issued an order for the conduct of a caste survey in the state.
In Maharashtra's 288-member assembly, the share of legislators with college degrees increased over the past decade.
The constitution of a committee by the Centre to explore the feasibility of "one nation, one election" has opened up the possibility of Lok Sabha polls being advanced so that they could be held with a string of state assembly polls.
Rathore also reacted to the protest in the constituency in support of former MLA Rajpal Singh Shekhawat, saying the BJP is the only party that gives everybody opportunity to move forward.
All eyes are on Congress chief Sonia Gandhi as top leaders converged at her 10, Janpath residence in New Delhi on Monday after a series of developments in the last 24 hours in Rajasthan, where a majority of the party MLAs have rebelled against Sachin Pilot and want Ashok Gehlot to continue as the chief minister.
Congress in charge for Rajasthan Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa said that the one who does not follow the ideology of the Congress has no place in the party and the decision to sack Gudha was a collective decision.
Some newly elected Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs met former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje at her Civil Lines residence on Sunday, amid suspense over whom the party will pick for the chief ministerial post in the state.
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