Gehlot said the CAA is against the Constitution and divides people in the name of religion.
"BJP leaders are playing the game at the behest of central leaders. MLAs were offered money... Rs 10 crore in advance and Rs 15 crore after the government is toppled," the chief minister alleged and added that the BJP wants to convert the state's politics into a goat market, 'bakra mandi'.
Never before has the BJP faced such a crisis over the nomination of the Chief Minister as it is facing now, discovers Prakash Bhandari, veteran observer of Rajasthan politics.
'I know people will say I am raising this issue because I have lost. There have been a lot of complaints about the electronic voting machines. There is a view that the machines were defective. 'When advanced countries like Japan and the US have discarded the use of these machines and gone back to using ballot papers, the Election Commission should take a fresh look at this,' former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot tells Anita Katyal.
With Vasundhara Raje in trouble over Lalit Modi controversy, the Rajasthan unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday came out in open support for the embattled chief minister who herself rubbished reports about a signature campaign by her to demonstrate backing of 120 MLAs.
According to party sources, the Congress Legislature Party meeting lasted for about an hour and a half.
Contests in 13 seats would attract most attention during the Chhattisgarh assembly elections as they feature prominent leaders of the Congress and BJP.
Two other Rajasthan ministers Vishvendra Singh and Ramesh Meena were also sacked from the state cabinet after a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party, its second in the last two days. The meeting was billed as a 'second chance' for Pilot, who had turned down appeals from the party's top leadership -- including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi -- to return to the fold.
His son and party chief Akhilesh Yadav lit the funeral pyre. The former Uttar Pradesh CM had died aged 82 at a private hospital in Haryana's Gurugram on Monday.
Congress leader Sachin Pilot on Friday stressed that the party would fight the Rajasthan assembly polls "unitedly" and said that a decision on who would lead the next government would be taken by the high command after consultations with the newly-elected MLAs.
He also said he does not want any other member of the Gandhi family to succeed him, virtually ruling out Priyanka as well for the top party position.
Congress leader Sachin Pilot on Thursday expressed happiness that the Congress party has taken cognisance of the issues raised by him about welfare of youth and corruption under the previous Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan, and asserted the party will contest the assembly polls unitedly to secure a massive victory.
The BJP had on Monday demanded the resignation of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on moral grounds after his government said in a reply to a question in the state A assembly that it taps phones in the interest of public safety and order.
Congress said the BJP should ask Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje to step down as it can no longer "continue to defend the indefensible".
'Anybody is free and welcome to contest in the election if they have the backing of 10 PCC delegates'
He also targeted the Congress government in Rajasthan, saying that had it set up a special court in the Kanhaiya Lal murder case, which happened in Udaipur last year, the accused would have been hanged by now.
The waiver would cost Rs 18,000 crore to the state government.
Despite a warning issued to him by the Congress, former Rajasthan deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot sat on a daylong fast at the Shaheed Smarak in Jaipur on Tuesday, demanding action in cases of alleged corruption related to the previous Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state led by Vasundhara Raje.
Filing of nominations for the post of Congress president is scheduled to begin on Saturday with a contest between Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and former Union minister Shashi Tharoor on the cards.
The Congress on Wednesday released a list of 40 leaders who would be the party's star campaigners for the May 10 assembly elections.
A deadly collision involving a gas tanker and multiple vehicles turned a stretch of the Jaipur-Ajmer highway here into an inferno on Friday morning, killing seven people, injuring more than 35 and engulfing over 30 vehicles in flames as thick black smoke filled the sky.
Gaurav Gogoi will head the screening committee for Rajasthan with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot included among the ex-officio members of the panel.
The BJP may be ready and waiting to pounce on another key state of the Hindi heartland, but it is the Congress's holy trinity that issued them an invitation to the beheading, notes Sunil Sethi.
Sachin Pilot on how he expects to help the Congress regain lost ground.
While Gehlot is learnt to be leading the race for chief minister's post, Pilot is also putting up stiff resistance and is staking his claim.
Pehlu Khan's name was mentioned in the summary of the chargesheet.
'Play safe and persist with an ailing Sonia Gandhi as interim chief and wait for an opportune moment to foist the crown prince yet again,' predicts Virendra Kapoor.
Badal's mortal remains were taken to the family's farmland, around a kilometer from his residence, on a flower-decked tractor-trolley with his son Sukhbir Singh Badal and other family members standing with folded hands as the vehicle moved past the mourners on the route.
Through gestures and decisions, the BJP high command has signalled that Raje may not be the lead actor but rather play a supporting role in a high-stakes election in its stamping ground.
A day after a group of Congress MLAs met Sachin Pilot, another party legislator on Friday expressed support for the dissident leader as trouble brewed again in Rajasthan's ruling party.
While the leadership of the biggest Opposition party, the Congress, has not reacted, even non-Congress and (now) anti-BJP parties like the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) have voiced no view on Banerjee's appeal, reports Aditi Phadnis.
Mallikarjun Kharge has the stature, maturity and gravitas to lead a national party like the Congress with its rich history of struggle and myriad achievements, asserts Virendra Kapoor.
He said, a message should go across the country, not just in Rajasthan that 'this will not be tolerated'.
What are the political equations, the challenges, and the threats?
"If anybody with a mass base joins the BJP or any political party, everybody welcomes him. Expressing trust in our ideology, if anybody joins us we will welcome him with open arms. This is a normal procedure," Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat told reporters in New Delhi.
Some of the MLAs seen in the video are Indraraj Gurjar, Mukesh Bhakar, Harish Meena.
Kumar, a resident of Bhagwan village in Hanumangarh, worked as a manger with Ellaqui Dehati Bank at Areh Mohanpora branch in the south Kashmir district.
What some of our leaders were up to in the last couple of days.
The ED said Das stated that his first statement given to the agency on November 3 last year in which he cited Baghel's name was "true and correct".
The controversy has sparked reactions across states. The famous Mankameshwar temple in Uttar Pradesh has now banned offerings of 'prasad' bought by devotees from outside and said they can offer homemade 'prasad' or fruits.
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