After a span of a week post-Rajasthan assembly results on December 3, the BJP has now announced the chief minister’s name and it is again an unpredictable name – Bhajanlal Sharma.

In its legislative meeting that took place on Tuesday, the party has now picked its chief minister for Rajasthan after announcing names for chief ministers of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.

Notably, Bhajanlal who represents the Sanganer constituency, was not among the top contenders. In fact, this is the first time he has been elected as an MLA in the 2023 assembly elections.

There were a number of speculations doing rounds on the CM’s name and the party chose to put a full stop to all while picking Sharma as their choice.

Names that evaporated

Among the top contenders was Vasundhara Raje who had already been in power before and appeared as the strongest candidate this time. The other big names that erupted this election season were Diya Kumari, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, and the Hindu poster boy Balaknath.

Surprises continued…

This is the third time in the series of assembly election results that the BJP chose to surprise the party, the voters, and the countrymen with totally unpredictable names.

BJP’s new formula

Vishnu Deo Sai was definitely not a name anyone had predicted for Chhattisgarh, a state where Dr. Raman Singh had already made a hat-trick from the BJP. Similarly, Shivraj Singh Chouhan was the strongest name in Madhya Pradesh. His ‘ladli behna‘ were left in tears when they saw a name other than Chouhan’s. BJP picked Mohan Yadav for the state.

In Rajasthan, the party applied the very same formula and gave an opportunity to a completely new face. A face as new to have been elected as an MLA for the first time. Leaving the senior leaders aside, the chit in the hand of Vasundhara Raje Scindia read ‘Bhajanlal Sharma’.