Bhajan Lal Sharma takes oath as Rajasthan's new chief minister
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Bhajan Lal Sharma took oath on Friday as Rajasthan's chief minister in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah at a grand event in Jaipur. Fellow BJP leaders Diya Kumari and Prem Chand Bairwa were reportedly sworn in as Sharma's deputies. Notably, Sharma is a first-time MLA from Rajasthan's Sanganer.
Why does this story matter?
The BJP picked Sharma as the CM on Tuesday amid speculations about who the party would pick. The party made similar surprise picks in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh after winning all three states in the recently held assembly elections. It unseated the Congress government in Rajasthan by winning 115 out of the 199 seats contested and restricted the grand old party to 69 seats.
Rajnath Singh, JP Nadda also present at event
Ex-CM Gehlot sat awkwardly beside 'rival' Gajendra Shekhawat
Notably, Sharma's swearing-in coincided with his birthday. Former Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje, newly-appointed Madhya Pradesh CM Mohan Yadav, along with several chief ministers of BJP-ruled states, attended the ceremony at Jaipur's iconic Albert Hall. His predecessor, Congress stalwart Ashok Gehlot, also attended the event, seated next to his bitter rival Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, who has filed a defamation case against the former.
Front runner Raje proposed Sharma's name: Reports
Sharma (56) hails from Bharatpur and is the longest-serving general secretary of the BJP (four terms) in Rajasthan. He was not given a ticket from Bharatpur, where Rashtriya Lok Dal's (RLD) Subhash Garg won by defeating BJP's Vijay Bansal. He has a long-standing association with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP's ideological parent.
