The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday picked first-time MLA Bhajan Lal Sharma as Rajasthan's new chief minister, ending days of speculation that followed its victory in the assembly polls.
The 58-year-old leader was administered the oath of office by Governor Mangubhai Patel.
A group photo taken at the Bharatiya Janata Party office in Jaipur ahead of Tuesday's legislature party meeting showed Bhajan Lal Sharma in the very last row.
All India Congress Committee president Mallikarjun Kharge, senior Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah attended the ceremony held at the L B Stadium in Hyderabad.
In the coming assembly election, negotiations over seat-sharing will be as important as actual outreach to voters.
Chief Minister-designate Mohan Yadav, an OBC leader and three-time Bharatiya Janata Party MLA, started his political career when he was a student and rose to become higher education minister of Madhya Pradesh where he announced to make Hindu epic Ramcharitmanas as an optional subject in colleges in 2021.
"Whoever said all those words you mentioned, I did not respond in kind because it is not the way I am built and we now have to move on, let bygones be bygones, whatever was said, we need to forget and move forward. It is not about individuals or positions or someone's statements now. It is about the country and the party," Pilot said.
Raut said there is always give and take in an alliance and they gave Ramtek and Kolhapur seats to the Congress. He said Sena-UBT has also given Amravati to the Congress.
The Yatra comes a day after the Congress was left high and dry with former ally Nitish Kumar, the Bihar chief minister, making a return to the BJP-led NDA.
Governor Biswabhusan Harichandan administered the oath of office to 61-year-old Netam at a function held at the Raj Bhawan in Raipur.
The speculation on whether Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former party chief Sonia Gandhi will attend the Ram temple consecration ceremony continued with the party on Thursday saying that their decision would be conveyed at the 'right time'.
The Congress has appointed observers to coordinate meetings of its legislature party in four states where assembly election results will be declared on Sunday.
Both of them said, the legislature party meeting has been called, most probably on Thursday, as part of a routine exercise to discuss various programmes and policies of the government, and to ensure coordination between government and party MLAs.
Anil Vij on Tuesday skipped Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini's swearing-in ceremony where, he would also have been inducted in the cabinet.
At least five Congress MLAs did not attend a meeting of the party's lawmakers in Maharashtra on Thursday, called in the aftermath of the high-profile exit of former chief minister Ashok Chavan that has triggered speculation about more such defections.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge Saturday said the Lok Sabha poll mandate is a "decisive rejection" of the politics of divisiveness and hate, and stressed that the INDIA bloc must continue functioning cohesively both inside and outside Parliament.
The MLAs of the ruling JMM-led alliance exuded confidence of winning the floor test, while the opposition BJP asserted that the coalition would be defeated.
The legislators landed at the Birsa Munda Airport in Ranchi in a chartered flight and were taken to the Circuit House in the city in two buses.
"Hemant Soren repeatedly ignored my advice and eventually landed in jail... he has always been surrounded by wrong advisors," Hembrom, a lawmaker from Borio seat in Sahibganj district, told reporters.
He died at AIIMS in New Delhi at 9.45 pm, hospital sources said.
The behaviour and conduct of certain ministers has upset some legislators, Patil said, as he warned that their fight would continue, if it is not corrected.
Robert Vadra indicated that he will also join politics and said there is an atmosphere of change in the country. His entire family is working diligently on this, he added.
The governor accepted Kumar's resignation, and asked him to continue as caretaker CM till a new government is formed, they said.
The Congress on Saturday appointed 50-year-old Jitu Patwari, who belongs to the Other Backward Classes, as president of the party's Madhya Pradesh unit replacing veteran Kamal Nath.
The authorisation will be sent to Kharge and the MLAs decided to go by the decision of the party's top leadership, said Shivakumar, one of the AICC observers appointed to coordinate the CLP meetings.
The Congress on Saturday named 22 more candidates for the Rajasthan assembly polls and denied ticket to Public Health Engineering Department Minister Mahesh Joshi from his Hawa Mahal constituency in Jaipur.
Chouhan's fate will be determined by the BJP central command's assessment of the implications of such a move ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
'I have been battling cancer for the last six months. Now, I feel that the time has come to inform people about it'
Apart from Raje, Union ministers Arjun Ram Meghwal, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Ashwini Vaishnaw are said to be among the frontrunners for the chief minister's post in Rajasthan.
'It is our right to not go there and pay a visit. It is the prerogative of every party on whether to visit a particular place or not'
The post, accompanied by Chouhan's picture with his palms brought together, sparked off speculation as "Ram Ram" is used both as a greeting as well as a parting message.
'Entire process of meeting individual legislators of Congress party has been completed with great bohemia.'
The Congress has 40 MLAs while the BJP has 25 in the 68-member state assembly. The remaining three seats are held by independents.
The Sena-UB has fielded popular wrestler Chandrahar Patil from Sangli despite the Congress announcing Vishal Patil's name from the same seat.
"I challenge BJP to prove corruption charges against me. If proved, I will resign from politics," said Hemant Soren.
BJP leader Anil Vij on Tuesday skipped Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini's swearing-in ceremony where, according to the outgoing CM M L Khattar, he would also have been inducted in the cabinet.
Apparently aimed at keeping the flock together ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls, all ruling Congress MLAs in Karnataka will stay put together at a hotel in Bengaluru on Monday after the budget session of the state legislature concludes and will later also travel together for voting the next day.
'We would continue with the Congress government's schemes with a review to enable it reaches the beneficiaries.'
BJP leader Diya Kumari, who was elected deputy chief minister of Rajasthan along with Prem Chand Bairwa, is a member of erstwhile Jaipur royal family and a two-time MLA.
The Congress Legislature Party, which met at a private hotel in Bengaluru on Sunday evening, passed a unanimous resolution authorising the party chief to pick its leader.
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