Union Home Minister Amit Shah along with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president JP Nadda held a night-long meeting on Wednesday with the party's Rajasthan leadership in Jaipur. Discussions were held on a range of issues ahead of the upcoming assembly elections. The meeting began at a hotel late on Wednesday evening and continued till 2 AM, according to PTI. This comes amid speculations that two central ministers may be asked to contest the elections following the BJP's decision to name three Union ministers and four MPs in its second list of candidates for poll-bound Madhya Pradesh.
As per PTI, BJP's Rajasthan unit said Union Jal Shakti minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal may be fielded in the assembly polls, along with some other MPs.
According to PTI, Shah and Nadda arrived on a special plane on Wednesday night to Jaipur and headed straight to the hotel near the airport where they first held a meeting with the core committee. The duo first had a 15-minute meeting with former chief minister Vasundhara Raje.
This was followed by a meeting with senior leaders in which constituencies and the party's election strategy were discussed. Feedback on the four 'Parivartan Yatras' that the BJP held recently were also taken. They were joined by Union minister and the party's election in-charge for Rajasthan Pralhad Joshi, co-in-charge Nitin Patel, BJP's in-charge for Rajasthan Arun Singh, state unit president C P Joshi, Union Ministers Gajendra Singh, Arjun Meghwal, Kailash Chaudhary, leader of opposition in Assembly Rajendra Rathore, deputy leader of opposition Satish Poonia among others during this meeting.
The meeting lasted three hours, after which Poonia and Rathore were the first to leave. The second round of meeting was held with BJP's national general secretary (organisation) B L Santosh, Union minister Pralhad Joshi, Nitin Patel, Arun Singh, Kuldeep Vishnoi, Vijaya Rahatkar and others.
As per PTI, the leaders discussed assembly constituencies and brainstormed ways to win the maximum number of seats in Mewar, Vagad, Shekhawati, Hadauti and Marwar regions and eastern Rajasthan in the assembly and Lok Sabha elections. Some leaders said that ticket distribution and other poll-related issues were discussed in the meeting.
Party leaders who stepped out of the meeting refused to give details of the discussions to the media, PTI reported. Convener of the election management committee Narayan Panchariya instead said that the authorised person from the party will give the information of the meeting to the media.
Nadda and Shah will meet local RSS leaders on Thursday morning, which has led to speculations that senior RSS pracharak Prakash Chand may be given certain responsibilities in the upcoming assembly elections.