Amid suspense over next Rajasthan chief minister, preparations on at Raj Bhawan for oath taking

Jaipur: With the Congress expected to announce the name of next Rajasthan chief minister within the next few hours, preparations have started at the Raj Bhawan in Jaipur for the oath-taking ceremony. Workers were seen cleaning and colouring the walls of Raj Bhawan located in the city's Civil Lines area.

Though it's not clear when the ceremony will be held, Raj Bhawan officials don't want to leave anything for the last minute and started working on preparations from Wednesday itself.

Meanwhile, Election Commission officials met Governor Kalyan Singh Thursday to apprise him of the election results, a spokesperson at the Raj Bhawan said.

Amid hectic lobbying for the top post, party president Rahul Gandhi said the name of the chief minister would be declared soon. Sources said that the decision would be taken Thursday itself. State Congress chief Sachin Pilot and former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot are contending for the post.

Rahul on Thursday held one-on-one meetings with Gehlot and Pilot and also held deliberations with the party's central observer KC Venugopal and party in-charge of Rajasthan Avinash Pande. The individual meetings with the two CM hopefuls lasted around 10-15 minutes each and neither Gehlot nor Pilot talked to the media after the meeting. 

Gandhi also sought the views of party workers through an internal messaging system with a pre-recorded message asking them to send their views directly to him through the application.

Congress has won 99 seats and BJP 73 seats in the Assembly elections held on December 7. A delegation of the Congress party had on Wednesday met the governor to stake claim to form a government.