Rajasthan Congress MLA Babulal Bairwa hospitalised after breathing problems

Jaipur, July 24: Rajasthan Congress MLA Babulal Bairwa, has been admitted to Sawai Man Singh Hospital in Jaipur after facing breathing problem, news agency ANI reported.

Bairwa who represents Kathumar constituency of Alwar district, is one of the Rajasthan Congress MLAs staying at the Fairmont Hotel in Jaipur.

Congress MLAs are holed themselves up in a resort near Jaipur, where they expressed support for Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot amid an open rebellion by Sachin Pilot and team.

"Babulal was shifted from hotel to SMS hospital this morning. He is asthmatic," Deputy Chief Whip, Mahendra Chaudhary. said.

The MLAs of the Gehlot camp were shifted to a five-star hotel on the Delhi highway after Sachin Pilot and 18 MLAs supporting him rebelled against Ashok Gehlot.

The MLAs were allegedly kept there to avoid possibilities of any offer by the rival camps to shun the party. In several photos and videos that are doing rounds on social media, the MLAs were seen performing yoga in the hotel lawn, watching movies, playing carrom and celebrating the birthday of an MLA.

The crisis in Rajasthan Congress has been brewing since the party picked Gehlot over Pilot for the chief minister's post. Pilot was sacked as deputy chief minister and the party's state unit president when he and 18 other MLAs stayed away from two Congress Legislature Party meetings.

Pilot and his supporters claimed to have the backing of 30 Congress MLAs and some independents.

Pilot has been upset since he was denied the Rajasthan chief minister's post after the December 2018 assembly elections.

In the 200-member assembly, the Congress has 107 MLAs and the BJP 72.

In the past, the ruling party has claimed the support of 13 independents, two MLAs each from the CPM and the Bhartiya Tribal Party (BTP), and one from the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).