Ashok Gehlot, Kamal Nath and Bhupesh Baghel to take oath as chief ministers today
Congress President Rahul Gandhi is expected to attend the three back-to-back events in Jaipur, Bhopal and Raipur.
The Congress chief minister-designates of three states are set to take oath of office on Monday. Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot will take oath as chief minister and deputy chief minister of Rajasthan in Jaipur at 10 am, while Kamal Nath will be sworn in at 1.30 pm in Bhopal, followed by Bhupesh Baghel in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur at 5 pm, the Hindustan Times reported.
In recently-held Assembly elections, the Congress won 99 seats in the 200-member House in Rajasthan, 114 of 230 seats in Madhya Pradesh and 68 of 90 seats in Chhattisgarh. The Bharatiya Janata Party was in power in all three states.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi is expected to attend all three ceremonies, according to NDTV. An unidentified spokesperson for the party said former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and other senior leaders are likely to attend the three events.
The swearing-in ceremonies are seen as an attempt to present a united front against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Leaders of several Opposition parties have been invited to the three events on Monday, including Telugu Desam Party chief N Chandrababu Naidu, former prime minister and Janata Dal (Secular) supremo HD Deve Gowda, Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and Bihar Opposition leader Tejashwi Yadav.
“The Congress has invited our party and [party chief] Arvind Kejriwal has authorised me to go as the party representative to Rajasthan,” Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh said, according to IANS. Singh said there was “no politics” behind the Congress invite, which came amid speculation that the two parties may team up in Delhi against the BJP in the next Lok Sabha polls.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will not attend the swearing-in ceremony in Madhya Pradesh, according to ANI. Her party MP Nadimul Haque will attend the oath-taking ceremony in Jaipur. Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, who is also an ally of the Congress in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav will not attend the events, reports said.