Rajasthan Assembly Election: Sachin Pilot says Rahul Gandhi to pick CM face

The delegation will be headed by the leader of the Congress Legislature Party, which will be picked by Congress president Rahul Gandhi for the chief minister's post after getting feedback from the newly elected MLAs.

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Aniruddha Dhar
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Rajasthan Assembly Election: Sachin Pilot says Rahul Gandhi to pick CM face

The contenders for the chief minister's post are Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot (ANI/Twitter)

Congress leaders Ashok Gehlot, Sachin Pilot and other party members met Governor Kalyan Singh on Wednesday evening to stake claim to form the government in Rajasthan. Discussions spread over hours between AICC office bearers, sent to Jaipur from Delhi, and the newly elected MLAs failed to resolve an apparent division over picking former chief minister Ashok Gehlot or the state unit chief Rajesh Pilot.

 In its first meeting of the day, the Congress Legislature Party passed a one-line resolution leaving it to Congress president Rahul Gandhi to take a final call on leader of the CLP, who will go on to become the chief minister.

 The discussions with the AICC general secretary Avinash Pande and observer KC Venugopal continued till late evening, when it was apparently decided to put them on hold.

Pande, Gehlot and Pilot were part of the delegation that left for a meeting scheduled earlier with Kalyan Singh. A Congress MLA said there could be another meeting of the Congress Legislature Party Thursday morning to resolve the deadlock. The party won 99 seats and its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal got one seat out of the 199 for which elections were held on December 7. 

Here are the highlights:

10.00 pm: "It's a normal procedure for Congress party legislators to give their feedback to observers. Observers give feedback to Congress President and then a final decision is taken. We've authorised the Congress President to take a final view as to who will head CLP leaders of the party," said Sachin Pilot.

7: 30 pm: Rajasthan: Ashok Gehlot, Sachin Pilot and other Congress leaders arrive at the Governor's House in Jaipur to stake claim.

Governor congress election Ashok Gehlot Rajasthan assembly Sachin Pilot Kalyan Singh delegation