CM’s visit to PMO creates speculation

A normal visit of the lady Chief Minister this afternoon to PMO to convey her “Thank You”  for Prime Minister’s recent visit to Rajasthan and also to again invite him for the inauguration Rajasthan Refinery in September-October created a lot of speculation in the national media, which had gone to the extent of saying that she has been offered Defence Ministry and she has refused.  Now, she has come to pacify the PM.  In fact, the timing of her visit also flared up the rumours as it coincided with the cabinet reshuffle, which is now scheduled for Sunday morning. Moreover, the Prime Minister’s lukewarm attitude to the Chief Minister during his Udaipur visit further fuelled the speculation that the Prime Minister is perhaps not happy with her “performance”.  

The media had gone to the extent of speculating that she is being inducted as the Defence Minister in this coming up reshuffle.  At present an additional charge of Defence is being retained by a Raje friend and a well-wisher Arun Jaitely, who is likely to retain the charge of only Finance. 

In this scenario, some of the ministers also reportedly got active to further “expand and extend” the prevailing speculation about her likely exit and joining the Union cabinet. The list of such ministers includes a few former “loyalists” also.  There is also a gossip in the dissident camp that at least 80 Rajasthan MLAs are in touch with Amit Shah and Narendra Modi in one or the other way for the last couple of months, but this gossip is being heard in Delhi and Jaipur power corridors for the last two years and nothing happened. 

It is also believed that two Raje government ministers - one lady Minister and another Minister from Ajmer Division - had complained to the Party High Command about the style and functioning of the Chief Minister by saying that they have to wait for hours together to meet the Chief Minister, even after their prior appointments.  

In this speculating scenario, a highly placed source told DNA that “there is no proposal with Modi-Amit Shah to effect a change of leadership in Rajasthan at this critical juncture and the next Assembly Elections will be fought only under her leadership”.  Notably, during his recent Jaipur visit, Amit Shah had also reportedly given a clean chit to the Chief Minister. 

Knowledgeable sources revealed to DNA that she was at PMO for about 72 minutes to mainly express her gratitude towards PM’s visit to Udaipur and also explore availability of dates when PM can inaugurate Refinery in Barmer.

According to sources, apart from extending him refinery invitation, she also availed of this opportunity to apprise the Prime Minister about the Robert Vadra land deal cases, which have been recently referred to CBI by the state government.   Similarly, recent child deaths in Bhilwara and Banswara were also reportedly discussed at PMO.