Amid speculations of who will become chief minister of Rajasthan, former chief minister Vasundhara Raje met BJP national president J P Nadda at his residence. The meeting lasted around 1.15 hours. She was accaompanied by her son Jhalawar MP Dushyant Singh, who has been camping in Delhi to attend the parliament session.
The BJP state chief C P Joshi has also been summoned to Delhi where he will have important meetings with BJP senior leaders on Friday.
The timing of meeting is important as the party is likely to finalise the name of Rajasthan chief minister in next 72 hours. The two time chief minister Vasundhara Raje, who has not been projected as the CM face, is the front runner for the post.
The delay in announcement is just building up the suspense and bringing sleepless nights for those who are the hopefuls.
Other contenders whose names are doing rounds are Om Mathur, Om Birla, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Diya Kumari, Baba Balaknath and Arjun Ram Meghwal.
Election fought on party symbol and PM face
This time, election in Rajasthan was fought on the guarantees of prime minister Modi, who publicly announced that the elections was being fought on party symbol. Vasundhara Raje, who had been chief minister twice, had limited role in election campaign. Though she addressed 55 rallies and was the only BJP candidate, who could move away from her constituency to campaign for other candidates.
Like Gehlot Raje also could not repeat government so far
Like former Congress leader who had been three-time minister Vasundhara Raje too could not repeat her government. The duo annexed the post alternatively since 2003. Gehlot had become chief minister for the first time in 1998 replacing Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. In 2003, Vasundhara Raje became CM, who gave in to Gehlot in 2008 and then again snatched the post back in 2013. Gehlot in 2018 replaced Raje to become CM for the third time outsmarting Sachin Pilot .
Raje would have been the natural choice for the third time. But the central leadership of BJP decided to go in without CM face.
Ram Kumar Kaushik is a seasoned journalist with over 25 years of experience across mediums. The architect of this news website, he is also a consultant with several media groups. He was formerly the group managing editor of ITV Network (NewsX, India News and The Sunday Guardian) and its digital products.
