Diya Kumari, Prem Chand Bairwa to be new Deputy CMs of Rajasthan

Jaipur (Rajasthan) [India]: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday selected Prem Chand Bairwa and Diya Kumari as the new Deputy Chief Ministers of Rajasthan.

Prem Chand Bairwa is the sitting BJP MLA from the Dudu constituency in Rajasthan. Bairwa won the seat in the 2023 Rajasthan Assembly Election by defeating Congress candidate Babulal Nagar with a margin of 35,743 votes.

Diya Kumari won from the Vidyadhar Nagar constituency against Congress’ Sitaram Agarwal with a margin of 71368 votes.

She is the granddaughter of Man Singh II, the last ruling maharaja of the princely state of Jaipur. Her appeal for votes was made as a “daughter of Jaipur” and the “princess who walks on the streets”.

Since joining the BJP in 2013, Diya Kumari has won the two elections she contested. She became an elected Member of the Legislative Assembly of Rajasthan from the Sawai Madhopur constituency in 2013. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, she was elected as an MP from Rajsamand.

Meanwhile, MLA Vasudev Devnani will be the Speaker. He hails from Ajmer and has previously served as the state Education Minister.

Bhajan Lal Sharma’s name as the Chief Minister of Rajasthan was announced by BJP’s Vasundhara Raje, whose name was also among the contenders for the top post.

He won the Sanganer assembly seat with an impressive margin, securing 145,162 votes against his Indian National Congress (INC) opponent, Pushpendra Bhardwaj, who polled 97,081 votes.

In Rajasthan, the vote count painted a starkly different picture from what some of the pollsters had predicted, with the BJP poised to form the government, winning 115 seats, and the Congress trailing at 69 seats.

Rajasthan went to the polls for 199 of the 200 assembly seats on November 25. The majority mark in the state is 100.