As many as 23 newly elected legislators – 22 of the Congress and one from the Rashtriya Lok Dal took oath as ministers in the Rajasthan cabinet formation on Monday.
BD Kalla, Raghu Sharma, Shanti Dhariwal, Lal Chand Kataria, Pramod Jain Bhaya, Parsadi Lal Meena, Vishvendra Singh, Harish choudhary, Ramesh Chand Meena, Bhanwar Lal Meghwal, Pratap Singh Khachariyawas, Udai Lal Anjana, Saleh Mohammad and Govind Singh Dotasara took oath as cabinet ministers.
Mamta Bhupesh, Arjun Singh Bamaniya, Bhanwar Singh Bhati, Sukhram Vishnoi, Ashok Chandna, Tikaram Jully, Bhajanlal Jatav, Rajendra Singh Yadav and RLD’s Subhash Garg took oath as state ministers.
Governor Kalyan Singh administered the oath of office and secrecy to all the ministers. CM Ashok Gehlot and Deputy CM Sachin Pilot also graced the oath-taking ceremony.
This comes a day after Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot returned to Jaipur after spending three days in New Delhi for a meeting with Congress president Rahul Gandhi and senior party leaders.
The names of council of ministers were finalised by Rajasthan Congress leaders including Gehlot and Pilot after rounds of discussions with Rahul Gandhi and other senior leaders. According to the sources, Congress general secretary in-charge of Rajasthan, Avinash Pandey, and Congress observer for the state on government formation, KC Venugopal, besides AICC secretaries for Rajasthan were also involved in the deliberations to decide on the ministers.
It is to be noted that Rajasthan can have a total of 30 ministers including the chief minister. The CM Gehlot-led cabinet will have a few vacancies left which will be filled later.
Also Read: Rajasthan: Ashok Gehlot takes oath as CM, Sachin Pilot his deputy