The BJP-elect National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate for the Presidential polls, Droupadi Murmu, arrived in Jaipur where she was given a grand welcome by the tribal community and party leaders. She reached Jaipur seeking support from BJP MLAs and MPs and others.
Murmu stayed in Jaipur for about two hours and held two meetings, one with the representatives of the tribal community, including retired officers, leaders, sportspersons, artists and others and her second meeting was held with the MLAs and MPs of the BJP, where senior leaders, including former CM Vasundhara Raje, party president Satish Punia, leader of opposition Gulab Chand Kataria, Union Ministers Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Arjun Meghwal and Murmu’s election agent for the state Rajendra Rathore were present.
The BJP has 71 MLAs in the 200 members of Vidhasabha of Rajasthan and 24 of the total 25 MPs. The BJP and other party leaders assured their full support to Murmu.
It is to mention here that the opposition parties' face for the Presidential election, Yashwant Sinha, had visited Jaipur on Monday for his election campaign, however, it was a sad moment as many independents, MLAs of other parties who are supporting the Congress government in Rajasthan were not present in the meeting with Sinha.
The Rajasthan Vidhansabha has 32 MLAs of tribal community as the state has 25 seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes (ST), and 7 ST MLAs have won general seats.
Out of these 32 seats, the ruling Congress has 17, and the opposition BJP has nine seats. Two seats belong to the Bhartiya Tribal Party (BTP), and the remaining four are independents.
It is being said that four independents and two MLAs of BTP may vote in favour of Murmu as she belongs to the tribal community.
The election agent of Murmu in Rajasthan, Rajendra Rathore, is hopeful of getting support from other MLAs. "We are confident that many MLAs from the tribal community will vote for Murmu as she is going to be the first Dalit woman to reach the top post of the country," said Rathore.
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