Congress Legislature Party says high command to pick leader of opposition in Rajasthan Assembly

Jaipur: The Congress Legislature Party on Tuesday passed a resolution authorising the party high command to pick the leader of the opposition in the Rajasthan Assembly, a leader said.

Rajasthan Congress general secretary Swarnim Chaturvedi said that the resolution was passed in the meeting held at the Congress headquarters here.

The meeting was attended by senior leaders Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Mukul Wasnik and Madhusudan Mistry, who among others were appointed as special observers for the Rajasthan polls by the central leadership of the Congress, he said.

Chaturvedi said after the meeting, the observers had a one-on-one interaction with the newly elected MLAs of the party.

Outgoing chief minister Ashok Gehlot, Rajasthan Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasra, senior leader Sachin Pilot along with the newly elected MLAs attended the meeting.

In the assembly election results declared on Sunday, Congress secured 69 of 199 seats while the BJP got a mandate of 115 seats to form the government.

After the meeting, Gehlot told reporters the election results were shocking as the Congress leaders and workers were expecting to retain power in the state.

He also said that the results in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were unexpected.

'We were expecting that the Congress government would repeat but the results were shocking. However, the Congress vote share has not reduced which is a good sign for the future,' Gehlot said.

He also said that the BJP emerged victorious as it bagged the votes of independent candidates and those from smaller parties,' he said.

He reiterated that there was no anti-incumbency against the Congress government and accused the BJP of doing politics of lies.

'We were contesting elections on the issue of development and performance of the government while the BJP told lies,' he said.

Pilot, the former deputy CM, said despite the hard work put in by everyone, there were some shortcomings which led to the party's defeat.

'What were the shortcomings, and how can they be removed, we will have to analyse,' he said, adding that self-introspection was needed.

Pilot said elections are won by first winning the hearts of the people.

'Unfortunately, we could not do this in the three states where Congress lost,” he said.

Pilot said the party will take a decision on the future course of action and asserted that young leaders must be promoted.

'Youths should be given the reins so that we can take the young generation into confidence,” he said.