Bhajan Lal Sharma named as Rajasthan CM, Diya Kumari and Dr Prem Chand Bairwa to be Deputy CMs

Bhajanlal Sharma is the next Chief Minister of Rajasthan, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced on Tuesday. Three BJP observers, led by defence minister Rajnath Singh arrived in Jaipur to oversee the legislature party meeting, where the chief minister-elect was picked.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) picked Bhajan Lal Sharma as the next chief minister of Rajasthan, over a week after registering a resounding victory in the Assembly elections, overthrowing the ruling Congress led by Ashok Gehlot.  There will be two Deputy chief ministers ---Diya Kumari and Dr. Prem Chand Bairwa.

Sharma won the recently concluded elections from the Sanganer assembly seat, with over 1,45,000 votes, defeating Congress's Pushpendra Bhardwaj.

The announcement came following the the BJP legislature party meeting at the party office in Jaipur, in the presence of the party's three central observers led by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

Earlier during the day, a group photo was also taken of all BJP MLAs with the central observers in what was a show of unity as the announcement on Rajasthan CM's name took longer than other states.

Former chief minister Raje and Union ministers Arjun Ram Meghwal, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Ashwini Vaishnaw were among the frontrunners for the chief minister’s post in Rajasthan, one of three states that the BJP won in the recent elections.

The Bharatiya Janata Party won 115 seats in Madhya Pradesh in the assembly elections of 2023 and was followed by Congress winning 69 seats.

In Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the BJP went for surprise choices -- Mohan Yadav and Vishnu Deo Sai respectively -- keeping in view the respective caste equations in these two states ahead of the 2024 general elections.