High drama unfolded at the Jaipur collectorate after the voting for the zila pramukh took place on Monday afternoon.
Agitated Congress workers tried to manhandle another defector – Jaiky Kumar – while he was boarding the bus with BJP councillors. The police had to resort to baton charge to control the situation.
Kumar’s mentor Ved Prakash Solanki, Congress MLA from Chaksu, tried to meet him in the melee, but to no avail.
Rajendra Rathore was present at the Jaipur collectorate, managing the show for BJP, while Congress chief whip Mahesh Joshi also reached the spot but could not salvage the situation for the party.
In a last-minute manoeuvre, BJP managed to get Devi, the Ward Number 17 Congress councillor, to defect and declared her the zila pramukh candidate. With Kumar cross-voting for BJP, they now had a thin majority of 26 out of 50 votes.
The defection in Congress took place right under the nose of the Ashok Gehlot-led government, which rattled the chief minister himself.
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