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 BJP’s top leadership on Friday. Sharma, a BJP state general secretary, took charge of the state on the day he turned 57. Along with him Diya Kumari and Prem Chand Bairwa were sworn in as the Deputy Chief Ministers by Governor Kalraj Mishra. All of them took the oath in Hindi.

The outgoing Chief Minster Ashok Gehlot attended the ceremony held in front of the historic Albert Hall here. A large gathering of BJP MLAs and workers from across the state witnessed it. Sharma was appointed the leader of the BJP legislature party on December 12.

The swearing-in ceremony was attended by PM Modi, BJP President JP Nadda, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and several other senior leaders of the party.

Newly appointed Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Mohan Yadav, Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami, Gujarat CM Bhupendrabhai Patel, Maharshtra CM Eknath Shinde, Goa CM Pramod Sawant and Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Keshav Prasad Maurya were also in attendance.

Seers and mahants from different places attended the ceremony as well. BJP supporters raised slogans of Jai Shri Ram and Modi Modi during the swearing-in ceremony. Ashok Gehlot, who was among the leaders who reached the programme early, sat next to  Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and was seen talking to him.

Shortly before the oath ceremony, a brief commotion took place at an entry point in Ramniwas garden where people forcibly entered the venue. Many people jumped over the barricades before the police managed to stop them. The BJP on December 12 picked first time MLA Bhajan Lal Sharma as Rajasthan’s new Chief Minister.    

The post Bhajan Lal Sharma takes oath as Chief Minister of Rajasthan in a ceremony attended by PM Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP’s top leadership appeared first on APN News.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath reportedly approved Baba Balak Nath’s name as the Chief Minister of Rajasthan. The RSS has also accepted his name as the state’s leader. On Sunday, the BJP returned to power in the state, winning 115 seats among 199 Assembly constituencies. The Congress has secured 68 seats. 

Baba Balak Nath is seen as the mirror image of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Aditynath. Though former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has been a strong candidate for many decades, she was not projected as the face of the Chief Minister position for the 2023 Rajasthan state election. Reports said that the name of the Rajasthan Chief Minister can be announced anytime soon.

The potential Chief Minister, Baba Balak Nath is the mutt head selected by the BJP to contest against Congress’s Imran Khan in the Muslim dominated Tijara Assembly constituency. He won from the constituency with a significant margin. Baba Balak Nath, fondly known as Rajasthan’s Yogi, hails from Alwar and is the Chancellor of Baba Mast Nath University in Haryana’s Rohtak city. He is also the eighth mahant of Baba Mast Nath Nath, which is the national headquarters of the Nath yogi’s sect. 

Notably, Baba Balak Nath and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath share closeness and the former treats the UP Chief Minister as his big brother. Moreover, Baba Balak Nath has often praised Yogi Adityanath in the past for his popular bulldozers politics, that involves using bulldozers to demolish illegal encroachments in the state. 

Furthermore, the closeness between the two and their identical saffron robes, has helped Baba Balak Nath to build an image similar to that of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in the northern state ahead of the assembly election. 

The assembly election in Rajasthan was conducted on November 25. 

The post PM Modi, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath approve Baba Balak Nath’s name as Rajasthan CM appeared first on APN News.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has expressed his confidence over Congress winning the assembly election in the state later this year and has targeted BJP saying, it will lose because of communally sensitive remarks.

Gehlot said the Congress will continue its winning streak in Rajasthan assembly elections as well after Karnataka victory. He added, BJP makes communally sensitive statements which will go against them. He said the people of Rajasthan have seen the growth and development in the state and the Congress party will come back to power again in the upcoming assembly elections.

He said, BJP leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah raised religious slogans which did not work in Karnataka. He said people want growth and development and they cannot be fooled in the name of religion. He said, the BJP had mentioned chanted Lord Bajrang Bali’s name in Karnataka. He further added he had complained to the election commission regarding this issue. He said this was a crime and this mentality should not be encouraged.

The Rajasthan CM further said the Congress has put a strong model of governance infrastructure before the people of Rajasthan and this will help them to win against the aggressive BJP campaigning in the state. He listed the achievements of the government of Rajasthan in issues like roads, welfare of daughters, water, health, infrastructure and education. He promised 1lakh km of roads will be built within the state. He said pensions were being given to 1 crore people in the state.

He further added, he had requested PM Modi to bring a national social security legislation similar to Rahul Gandhi’s NYAY scheme. He recounted four laws passed by the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former party chief Sonia Gandhi – Right To Information(RTI), Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), National Food Security Act and the Right Of Children Of Free and Compulsory Education Act.

Distancing himself from commenting on the ongoing strife with the Sachin Pilot, Gehlot said it is an internal party issue and will be solved internally.

The post Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot confident Congress will win the Assembly elections in Rajasthan,says BJP will lose because of their communally sensitive statements appeared first on APN News.

Sachin Pilot’s decision to fold up his rebellion and return home marks a big comedown for the young man who took off from Jaipur last month with the hope of upsetting Ashok Gehlot’s applecart and becoming Rajasthan chief minister.

But if a compromise could be found to what looked like an imminent break-up a few days ago, the reason was a strong advocacy within Congress that Pilot should not leave the party. It was further helped by Pilot’s own realisation that he was in choppy waters after raising the stakes. There were enough leaders in Congress who felt that even if the Gehlot government survived, of which the CM was confident, it would leave the party badly battered.

Pilot’s departure would have come after the defection of the high-profile Jyotiraditya Scindia and the fall of state governments in MP and Karnataka, and would have reinforced the perception that Congress was a sinking ship and a rudderless organisation. It would not only have made the party more vulnerable to dissensions but also further deflated its stock with the masses.

Additionally, after Scindia, Pilot would have been the second close Rahul Gandhi “friend” to rebuff the party, which would have further helped the BJP’s campaign against the Gandhi scion.

Seniors as well as young members lobbied the Congress leadership that while Pilot had done the unpardonable by playing BJP’s game, everything should be done to persuade him back.

In contrast, Congress managers felt retaining the GenNext leader after a fullblown crisis would win the party a few brownie points about its political skills in the wake of repeated failures at the hands of rival BJP.

Read Also: 53,601 NEW CORONAVIRUS PATIENTS IN THE LAST 24 HRS

Moreover, sustained pressure from Congress to seek disqualification of the rebel MLAs and the looming assembly session appeared to go against the calculations of the rebel camp. The mutual compulsion ensured that both sides kept negotiating despite their respective grievances with each other. This took what appeared an imminent divorce off the table, ultimately resulting in a rapprochement.

The post HOMECOMING OF SACHIN PILOT appeared first on APN News.

In Rajasthan, a cabinet was held at the Rajasthan chief minister‘s residence to discuss points raised by the governor Kalraj Mishra for calling a state assembly session. Chaired by Gehlot, the meeting was called for discussing the points which were raised by Governor on Monday. Governor Mishra, after much dilly-dallying, gave his nod to the assembly session though putting forth conditions to be satisfied by the Gehlot government which is facing a rebellion from now-sacked deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot and 18 other dissident MLAs. Conceding that securing a vote of confidence can be a reasonable ground for calling an assembly session on short notice, Mishra yesterday said the revised Cabinet recommendation does not mention it. Accordingly, he returned the Cabinet recommendation and sought another recommendation for the purpose, incorporating a 21-day notice period for calling the session for a floor test, a Raj Bhawan statement said.

In a related development, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot wrote to President Ram Nath Kovind and spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about Governor Kalraj Mishra’s “conduct”.  Quoting a media article, Gehlot said this was the first time in 70 years that such a thing has happened. Gehlot has asked the President to intervene in the situation and ensure that the assembly be started immediately, saying it was the “constitutional right” of the Chief Minister.

Meanwhile, three former law ministers — Kapil Sibal, Salman Khurshid and Ashwani Kumar — have written to Rajasthan Governor, asking him to stick to the rules. “A Governor is bound to act on the aid and advice of Council of Ministers in convening the assembly. Any deviation from the established constitutional position would be an avoidable negation of your oath of office and will create constitutional crisis,” their letter read.

Read Also: INDIA GEARS UP FOR OXFORD VACCINE TRIALS

The crisis in the Rajasthan government started earlier this month as Sachin Pilot openly rebelled after longtime friction with his former boss Ashok Gehlot. The trigger was a summons for questioning in the alleged horse-trading by the BJP ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections. Gehlot alleged that he had evidence of Pilot’s involvement in the BJP plot to topple his government.

The post GEHLOT HOLDS CABINET MEET, POINTS RAISED BY GOVERNOR DISCUSSED appeared first on APN News.

For once, the Congress is seeing its members openly fault the strategy in handling its talent. On Sunday, former union minister Kapil Sibal tweeted,”Worried for our party. Will we wake up only after the horses have bolted from our stable”. Since then, a host of leaders of different ages are venting their frustration with what they describe as the inexplicably inaccessible Gandhis.

Unlike in Scindia’s case, Pilot was reportedly phoned by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra; Congress spokesperson RS Surjewla said even  Sonia Gandhi reached out to Mr Pilot, urging him to reconsider the moves that were placing him in a daunting confrontation with the party.

There are not many in the Congress who feel that Pilot’s main ask could be substantiated – a promotion to Chief Minister. But there is this distinct complaint that Pilot could have been assuaged earlier, by offering him a clear demarcation of powers from those enjoyed by Gehlot, by in-person meetings with the Gandhis and by an assurance that Gehlot would be ordered to curtail a growing campaign to diminish Pilot’s stature. When Pilot visited Delhi about 10 days ago to warn that he was at break point, he was granted time with senior leaders like Ahmed Patel, but no slot with the Gandhis.

There is also a section of the party that believes that Rahul Gandhi needs to either return as Congress president and take accountability for his decisions – or surrender the ultimate authority he continues to exert on critical matters via his mother, who replaced him as Congress chief when he quit the post after the party’s debacle in the general election last year. Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, thirsting for direct attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are convinced that this strategy distinguishes them from other opposition leaders and are not open to rethinking their approach. Their loyalists dismiss anyone who disagrees as those “in touch with the BJP”.

Scindia quit the Congress in March after veteran Congressmen in his state, Madhya Pradesh, worked to relegate him to a sideshow. The Gandhis did not intervene at that time. When Pilot, on Sunday, made it clear that he will no longer tolerate Gehlot’s tactics to do the same to him, Scindia fist-bumped him on Twitter, posting, “Sad to see my erstwhile colleague Sachin Pilot too, being sidelined and persecuted by Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot. Shows that talent and capability find little credence in the Congress”.

The conflict with Pilot was inflamed when he was served a notice by the state police for questioning in an investigation to determine if the BJP was making large offers of cash to Congress legislators to switch sides. It provided the last mile in Pilot’s journey to the Out gate. Scindia brought down the Madhya Pradesh government when he opted out of the Congress. The party contends with the prospect of Pilot providing a sequel in Rajasthan. It attests to the growing sinkhole that the Gandhi strategy has turned into. As the Congress tries to compute its losses, all forced errors, the family at its centre has much to explain. In Congress-speak, though, it will probably introspect at most.

The post GIVEN 2 DAYS’ TIME TO RESPOND. NOT JOINING BJP, INSISTS PILOT appeared first on APN News.