Jaipur: BJP leader Diya Kumari, who was one of the frontrunners in the chief ministerial race in Rajasthan, was announced to hold the Deputy CM post in the state, in yet another surprise move by the party on Tuesday (December 12). She will share the office with another Deputy Prem Chand Bairwa. Bhajan Lal Sharma, a first-time MLA, was declared as the CM face of the party in the legislative party meeting held in Jaipur in presence of the central observers.
Massive suspense had been building around the names of the chief minister in the three states which the BJP won in the Assembly elections -- Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. The party first announced the CM face in Chhattisgarh, then Madhya Pradesh, and lastly Rajasthan today, in which Vishnu Deo Sai, Mohan Yadav and Bhajan Lal Sharma will be the chief ministers of the three states respectively. The party also announced the names of Deputy CMs in all three states, and switched to a new formula of having two deputies in each state. Following a similar line in Rajasthan, the party declared Diya Kumari and Prem Chand Bairwa as Sharma's deputies.
Who is Diya Kumari?
- Diya Kumari is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, who is a member of the erstwhile royal family of Jaipur, and won the elections from the Vidhyadhar Nagar Assembly seat in Jaipur.
- She was fielded by the party replacing a three-time incumbent MLA Narpat Singh Rajvi. Kumari, 52, was also an MP from the Rajsamand Lok Sabha seat before she resigned after being elected as an MLA in the recently-concluded Assembly elections in Rajasthan. She is the granddaughter of Maharani Gayatri Devi.
- In the 2013 Rajasthan Assembly Election, Diya Kumari won the Sawai Madhopur constituency by defeating heavyweight leader Kirodi Lal Meena with a margin of 7,532 votes.
- In the 2019 Lok Sabha Election, Diya Kumari won the Rajsamand constituency by defeating Congress candidate Devkinandan Kaka with a massive margin of 5,51,916 votes.
- She contested the Rajasthan Assembly Elections 2023 from Vidhyadhar Nagar against Congress candidate Sitaram Agarwal.
- She was made the in-charge along with BJP leader Alka Gurjar of managing the conduct of the conclusion event of the BJP's Parivartan Yatra on September 25 in Jaipur in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi participated.
- Kumari had led the protests in Jaipur against Gehlot when the BJP had organised campaign against issues including law and order and paper leaks.
Rajasthan Assembly Elections and BJP's CM race
The BJP stormed back to power in Rajasthan, ousting the Ashok Gehot-led Congress government, and won massive 115 seats. Soon after the BJP's victory, speculations were rife about former CM Vasundhara Raje to reclaim her CM post, however, some other names surfaced as well for the CM race. The BJP appointed Rajnath Singh, Vinod Tawde, Saroj Pandey as central observers for Rajasthan, who announced the chief ministerial face today and put an end to all speculations.
