Independent MLA candidate Naresh Meena was arrested on Thursday following high drama and escalating violence in which a mob assaulted a PTI reporter and video cameraperson and burnt their camera.
Former Rajasthan minister Rajendra Singh Gudha claimed that Congress leaders dragged him out of the state assembly on Monday.
If Meena resigns, it is likely to put pressure on other ministers whose areas also saw poor performance in the general elections.
Congress candidates Randeep Surjewala, Mukul Wasnik and Pramod Tiwari were elected to the Rajya Sabha, according to a tweet by Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.
A message on Pilot's official WhatsApp group said Tuesday night that he has served Malinga a legal notice for 'the false and malicious statement' he made to the press.
These are the 15 seats to watch out for in Rajasthan where assembly elections will be held on November 23. The state has 200 constituencies.
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.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
The action followed a show-cause notice to the Shahpura MLA, who is a former Speaker of the state assembly, from the party's state unit president CP Joshi.
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 Rajasthan BJP president Satish Poonia accused the Congress of being behind the demolition, state Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasra asserted that it was the decision of the city's municipality headed by the saffron party.
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.
He showed a video of Solanki and Poonia purportedly entering a hotel and exiting a hotel room one after the other.
He also told reporters outside the state assembly complex here that the state police will seek help from central agencies on a possible Pakistan angle in the incident.
Singh met Congress president Rahul Gandhi before joining the party.
"Sanjay Jain has been arrested by the Special Operations Group (SOG) team of Rajasthan Police, under sections 124A and 120B of Indian Penal Code (IPC)," Police said.
Sacked Rajasthan minister Mahipal Maderna was on Friday grilled for the second day in Devi abduction case by the Central Bureau of Investigation which also questioned his wife and another Congress member of Legislative Assembly even as the agency filed a status report on its probe in the Rajasthan high court.
Pilot said he will be taking 'appropriate and strictest possible legal action' against the MLA who 'was made to' level these accusations. Congress MLA Giriraj Singh Malinga alleged that Pilot had offered him money to join the BJP.
The Congress is blaming the BJP to deflect criticism for its inability to keep its house in order, but truth is clear before the masses, the BJP said.
The Ashok Gehlot camp has been saying that they enjoyed the support of 109 MLAs, a claim contested by the Pilot loyalists. In the run-up to the Congress Legislature Party meeting in Jaipur on Tuesday, Pilot loyalist Ramesh Meena said, "A floor test should be conducted in the assembly. This will expose the claim that the Ashok Gehlot government has the support of 109 MLAs."
The counting began at 8 am to decide the fate of the candidates contesting the polls, among whom all eyes will be on Dimple Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav's elder daughter-in-law and the wife of Akhilesh Yadav, who is contesting from the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat, necessitated by the demise of Samajwadi Party veteran Mulayam Singh Yadav in October.
Sources in the Raje camp said she would be meeting the party high command on Thursday.
After much flip-flop, the Congress decided to form an alliance with the Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP) and the two parties fielded their joint candidate -- Rajkumar Roat. However, the Congress candidate, Arvind Damor, whose name was announced before the stitching of the alliance, has refused to withdraw his nomination.
'They could have told the media that there is nothing in it and let me read it out.'
'The good governance which the Congress government claims has resulted in a regime where women in Rajasthan are afraid to go out of their homes.'
Ugly scenes were witnessed in Rajasthan Assembly on Monday when an opposition Bharatiya Janata Party member of Legislative Assembly hurled a sandal towards Congress members and a ruling party lawmaker retaliated by brandishing his shoe following a heated exchange between two legislators. The footwear, however, did not hit anyone.
Maderna was arrested on December 2 in Jodhpur by the CBI along with Bishnoi, the brother of Congress MLA Malkhan Singh, after it filed charge sheet against three other arrested accused.
"The Congress is "going to (fight) the election with unity" and it will win the polls," Sharma said after the meeting at Pilot's Civil Lines residence that lasted for nearly half an hour.
Come December 8, and the Congress will again do well in Saurashtra region, he says.
Senior BJP leader and Patnagarh MLA KV Singh Deo and debutant from Nimapara assembly segment Pravati Parida took oath as deputy chief ministers.
'They wanted to prove that the BJP was behind all this, which was not the case. Then Deputy CM Sachin Pilot even said that no one was listening to them even when they wanted to tell their side of the story, so they all got together and reached the party's high command'
The ruling BJP in UP, however, lost Khatauli to Samajwadi Party ally Rashtriya Lok Dal.
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.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra hit back at the Congress a day after it cited some audio clips to accuse some saffron party leaders, including Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, of conspiring to topple the Ashok Gehlot government in the state.
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.
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.
Rajsamand MP Diya Kumari and Jaipur Rural MP Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore are among the seven BJP parliamentarians who will contest the Rajasthan Assembly polls, according to the first list of 41 candidates issued by the party on Monday.
The state government issued a notification requiring the CBI to take prior consent of the state government for investigation of an offence under Section 3 of the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act, 1946.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot loyalist and state cabinet Minister Pratap Khachariyawas on Monday said that the Congress workers are attempting to save their party and have to be prepared to "spill blood on the roads" against the Bharatiya Janata Party which, he alleged, wants to "topple" the state government.
The only occasion when the BJP had 100 seats in the Upper House was in 2022.
