Rahul Gandhi to attend Ashok Gehlot, Sachin Pilot swearing-in at Albert Hall

JAIPUR: Congress president Rahul Gandhi and top leaders of the opposition parties’ “grand alliance” would participate in the oath-taking ceremony of Ashok Gehlot as chief minister and Sachin Pilot as deputy chief minister here on Monday.
The ceremony will be held at the Albert Hall around 10am. Gandhi and the ‘grand alliance’ partners would then fly to Bhopal to witness the swearing in of Kamal Nath as the Madhya Pradesh CM.

Governor Kalyan Singh will administer the oath of office to Gehlot, who would be third time chief minister of the state. He first served as CM from 1998 to 2003 and then from 2008 to 2013. Pilot, who is the Congress state president and who earlier served as a union minister in UPA-II government (2009-2014), will be a Dy CM for the first time.

Invites have been sent to former Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and H D Deve Gowda and grand alliance leaders Farooq Abdullah, Chandrababu Naidu, Sharad Yadav, Tejashwi Yadav, M K Stalin, M Kanimozhi, Hemant Soren, Babulal Marandi and Congress MP Mallikarjun Kharge, among others. Outgoing chief minister Vasundhara Raje, who had already submitted her resignation to the governor after the assembly results, would be present at the swearing in.

The state government had moved an application before the Rajasthan high court for permission to hold the oath ceremony near the Vidhan Sabha at the Janpath. There is court restriction on political rallies and protests in the main city during peak office hours on working days. During hearing of the application, Justice M N Bhandari enquired about how the event would not cause any hassle to the common man.

Though the court later granted the permission with certain riders, the government decided to shift the venue to the Albert Hall, as it would cause minimum hurdle to the city traffic. The venue is on the straight road from the airport and can accommodate a big crowd.

AICC general secretary in-charge Avinash Pande has been coordinating with the newly elected Congress MLAs for the oath ceremony. So far, though, just Gehlot and Pilot are scheduled to be sworn in on Monday, hectic lobbying is going on among the party’s legislators and the Independent MLAs to find a ministerial berth in the new government. Senior as well as young leaders have been advancing their candidatures to be part of the government, said party sources.