Gehlot to stay as CM!

Jaipur: There is a new twist in an ongoing Rajasthan Congress ‘drama’, where now, according to higly placed sources in the grand-old party, Ashok Gehlot will remain the Chief Minister for the time being. On Friday, Gehlot held a long consultation with Mallikarjun Kharge and after this, Gehlot also had a long consultation with Anand Sharma and the leaders of G-23 and agreed to make Kharge the official candidate instead of Digvijaya.

G-23 leaders also agreed after talks with Gehlot and all these people became proposers for Mallikarjun Kharge. As a result, now G-23 has not fielded any candidate and thus now Kharge is almost certain to become the Congress President. Notably, Kharge is Gehlot’s old ‘ally’. Meanwhile, as far as the question of legislature party meeting to elect a new chief minister is concerned, now that issue has also got stuck because no CLP meeting is taking place for the next few days. Thus the work of choosing the new Chief Minister has also been postponed. Meanwhile, a source related to Delhi gave indication that if Gehlot continues to be the CM, then Pilot could be made PCC Chief a new post, that of Organization General Secretary for the States of Northern India, may be created. But the million dollar question is: Whether Pilot will agree to this new ‘offer’, which has already been rejected by him, more than once. The Gehlot camp has adopted the strategy of ‘Wait and Watch’ as Gehlot returned to Jaipur on Friday evening after a three-day stay in Delhi following which several ministers and MLAs rushed to CMR to meet Gehlot. Gehlot, focussing back on Rajasthan, has resumed his tours to observe Rural Olympics & will tour Bikaner, Sri Ganganagar Hanumangarh today.