Bhajanlal Sharma was on Friday sworn in as the chief minister of Rajasthan by Governor Kalraj Mishra at a grand event here.
The Governor also administered the oath of office to deputy chief ministers Diya Kumari and Prem Chandra Bairwa in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, BJP president J P Nadda, chief ministers of BJP-ruled states, party MPs and other top functionaries.
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Former chief minister and senior Congress leader Ashok Gehlot also shared the dais and shook hands with BJP leaders and Union ministers.
BJP veteran Vasundhara Raje, who was the frontrunner for the chief minister’s post, was seen sitting alongside Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhavat.
Sharma, who celebrated his 56 birthday coinciding with the swearing-in ceremony, is the 15th chief minister of Rajasthan and also among the youngest leader to attain the top post.
Rajasthan got a chief minister from the Brahmin caste after 33 years of Late Hari Deo Joshi (Congress) ruling the state in 1973-77, 1985-1988 and 1989-90.
Hailing from Bharatpur district, Sharma is a post graduate in Political Science. In his early years, he was an active member and functionary of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in Nadbai and Bharatpur. He took active participation in the Kashmir March in 1990 and was jailed during the Sriram Janam Bhoomi Andolan in 1992.
In the 2023 assembly poll, he won from Jaipur’s Sanganer constituency.
With the general elections slated for the coming year, the saffron party aims to target varied caste votes through Sharma, BJP state president C P Joshi (Brahmins), Rajput votes through Diya Kumari, SC/ST via deputy chief minister Bairwa, and Sindhi mandates from Speaker Vasudev Devnani.
