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Updated: Dec 13, 2018 21:17 IST

Hours before the Congress legislature party meets in Bhopal to name Madhya Pradesh’s next chief minister, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday evening tweeted a photograph with the two senior party leaders seen as contenders for the chief minister’s job - Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia.

Along with the photograph was a quote from Russian author Leo Tolstoy’s “Bethink Yourselves”.

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time,” Gandhi, 48, said in a tweet that is being seen to signal the end of Madhya Pradesh’s wait for its next chief minister.

The Congress legislature party in Madhya Pradesh will be meeting at 10 pm, many hours after Gandhi told reporters early on Thursday that a decision on the party’s three chief ministers would be taken soon.

The Congress president had been authorised by the party’s legislators to select chief ministers for the three states snatched from the BJP - Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh - in the just-concluded state elections.

Gandhi has been closeted at meetings for a larger part of the day to decide on chief ministers for Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh where the Congress dislodged the ruling BJP governments.

The Congress had hoped to finalise all three names today. But there have been signals that there was an outside chance that this may not be possible any longer.

Also read | Sonia Gandhi meets Rahul Gandhi on 3 chief ministers, announcement likely tonight

Ashok Gehlot, 62,who was to take an evening flight to Jaipur along with Congress general secretary KC Venugopal had ended up returning from the Delhi airport; reportedly because KC Venugopal did not reach the airport.

Congress legislators in Rajasthan said the party had not fixed a time for the meeting of the legislature party yet. Leaders close to Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot, who have urged their supporters to keep calm, did not indicate if the meeting could still be convened tonight.

Jyotiraditya Scindia, 47, the election campaign committee chief in Madhya Pradesh, followed up on Rahul Gandhi’s tweet to underline that the party would announce its chief minister tonight.

“It is not a race, it is not about kursi (chair), we are here to serve the people of Madhya Pradesh. I am leaving for Bhopal and you will get to know the decision today,” he announced on the micro-blogging site. First in English, and then in a second tweet, in Hindi.