"Hope that while working as CM of Rajasthan, you will maintain pace of development": Ashok Gehlot congratulates Bhajanlal Sharma
Dec 12, 2023
Jaipur (Rajasthan) [India], December 12 : Congress leader and former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Tuesday congratulated Bhajanlal Sharma on being selected as Rajasthan chief minister by the BJP legislature party.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) named Bhajanlal Sharma, a first-time MLA from the Sanganer assembly constituency, as the chief minister of Rajasthan, along with two deputy Chief Ministers for the state.
"Hearty congratulations and best wishes to Bhajanlal Sharma on becoming the leader of the BJP legislature party. I hope that while working as the chief minister of Rajasthan, you will maintain the pace of development and play a role in fulfilling the goal of making Rajasthan the number one state of the country," Gehlot said in a post on X.
The party picked legislators Diya Kumari and Prem Chand Bairwa as Deputy Chief Ministers. Former state minister Vasudev Devnani would be the Assembly Speaker, Rajnath Singh said after the meeting.
Prem Chand Bairwa is the sitting BJP MLA from the Dudu constituency in Rajasthan. Bairwa won the seat in the 2023 Rajasthan Assembly Election by defeating Congress candidate Babulal Nagar with a margin of 35,743 votes.
Diya Kumari won from the Vidyadhar Nagar constituency against Congress' Sitaram Agarwal with a margin of 71368 votes. She is the granddaughter of Man Singh II, the last ruling maharaja of the princely state of Jaipur. Her appeal for votes was made as a "daughter of Jaipur" and the "princess who walks on the streets."
Sharma won the Sanganer assembly seat with an impressive margin, securing 145,162 votes against his Indian National Congress (INC) opponent, Pushpendra Bhardwaj, who polled 97,081 votes.
In Rajasthan, the vote count painted a starkly different picture from what some of the pollsters had predicted, with the BJP poised to form the government, winning 115 seats, and the Congress trailing at 69 seats.
Rajasthan went to the polls for 199 of the 200 assembly seats on November 25. The majority mark in the state is 100.
