The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced Bhajan Lal Sharma as the next Chief Minister of Rajasthan, after days of speculation as to who the new CM of Rajasthan would be.
The announcement came days after the party swept the Assembly elections in Rajasthan by winning 114 seats. BJP’s central observers, Rajnath Singh, Vinod Tawade, and Saroj Pandey had earlier arrived in Jaipur on Tuesday to meet all MLAs, before the final decision was taken.
Bhajan Lal Sharma’s name as the Chief Minister of Rajasthan was proposed by BJP’s Vasundhara Raje, former CM of the state, who herself was among the contenders for the top post.
Sharma’s name was announced by Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, also the central observer for the state. Mahant Balaknath, Diya Kumari and Arjun Ram Meghwal, were some other names in the list of contenders for the CM post.
He won the recently concluded elections, where the BJP pulled of a hat-trick, from the Sanganer assembly seat, defeating Congress’s Pushpendra Bhardwaj with over 48,081 votes.
Sharma is a first-time MLA from Sanganer and a four-time state general secretary for the BJP.
‘A meeting of the MLAs was called to decide on the Legislative Party Leader. The proposal to appoint Bhajanlal Sharma was presented by former CM and BJP national vice president Vasundhara Raje. Everybody agreed upon the name unanimously,’ Rajnath Singh, told the media on Tuesday.
In his first media interaction, after being picked, Sharma said, ‘I would like to assure you that all the MLAs of Rajasthan will definitely meet the expectations that the people have with the BJP. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, we will ensure holistic development of Rajasthan in all areas.’
Bhajan Lal Sharma hails from Rajasthan’s Bharatpur. He was elected as an MLA from Sanganer after he defeated former Jaipur Mayor Ashok Lahot. Sharma has been associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) over his career.
Vidhyadhar Nagar MLA Diya Kumari and Dudu MLA Premchand Bairwa were also announced as deputy chief ministers, and Ajmer North MLA as well as Former State Education Minister in the Raje cabinets of 2003 and 2013, Vasudev Devnani was announced as the Assembly Speaker.
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