News Analysis India

Tag: Rajasthan

  • Rajasthan: Rebel BJP leader Ladulal Pitliya withdraws nomination for Sahara Assembly seat

    By PTI
    JAIPUR: Rebel BJP leader Ladulal Pitliya on Friday withdrew his nomination for the Sahara Assembly seat of Rajasthan’s Bhilwara, according to state party leaders.

    This is being seen as a big relief for the BJP as Pitliya’s rebellion after he was denied the party ticket in the 2018 Assembly elections had cost it the seat.

    He had jumped into the fray as an independent, receiving 30,573 votes and finished third.

    Congress candidate Kailash Chandra Trivedi had won the seat, defeating BJP’s Rooplal Jat by a margin of around 7,000 votes.

    Nearly a month ago, Pitliya had rejoined the BJP.

    When the party announced Ratanlal Jat as its candidate for the April 17 bypolls, Pitliya again filed nomination papers as an independent.

    A BJP spokesperson here said Pitliya withdrew his nomination and decided to serve the party, expressing faith in public welfare policies of the Union government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

    State BJP president Satish Poonia said, ”The party had given serious consideration to the candidature of Ladulal Pitliya but unanimously decided the name of Dr Ratanlal Jat. The party has said that it will respect Pitliya and give deserving responsibility to him. He has withdrawn his nomination unconditionally. The party welcomes his decision.”

    He described the withdrawal of nomination by Pitliya as a result of an efficient election management of party leaders.

    The BJP will win all three seats of Sahara, Rajsamand and Sujangarh with the hard work of its workers and the blessings of the people, Poonia added.

    The bypolls to the Sahara seat have been necessitated due to the demise of sitting Congress MLA Kailash Trivedi.

    The Congress has fielded Trivedi’s wife Gayatri Devi.

    According to poll officials, 2,47,400 people, including 1,24,100 men and 1,23,300 women, are eligible to vote in the Sahara elections.

    Twenty-one candidates had filed their papers for the bypolls.

    The last date for the withdrawal of nominations is April 3.

    While the voting will be held on April 17, the counting will take place on May 2.

  • 65-year-old woman beaten to death by son in Rajasthan’s Kota

    By PTI
    KOTA: A 65-year-old woman died here on Friday, two days after her alcoholic son allegedly thrashed and beat her with a brick, police said.

    The victim, identified as Rajkumari Bairwa, went into a coma after the incident that took place on Wednesday night in Udhyog Nagar.

    She succumbed during the treatment at Maharao Bhimsingh Hospital.

    The accused, Shashikant, 35, according to police, is unemployed and would “frequently” hit his mother over monetary issues.

    “On Wednesday as well, the argument over money turned violent,” Sub Inspector (SI) Mohammed Ibrahim said, adding that he thrashed her after she refused to give him money.

    The victim had been living with the accused, her younger son, since the death of her husband Babulal, who worked for the state’s irrigation department.

    Her elder son is employed with the revenue department and is currently posted in Ajmer, the SI said.

    A case was lodged on the complaint of the victim’s brother under Section 302 (Murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), he said, adding that efforts were on to nab the accused.

    The victim’s body was handed over to the family members after post-mortem.

  • Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot lends support to TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee​; says democracy under threat

    By PTI
    JAIPUR: Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Wednesday supported TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee over her concerns on democracy and the constitution, saying he has echoed the same issues many times.

    “What Mamta Banerjee has said is right that the central government is working to weaken states. The Centre should think to strengthen the states instead of weakening them,” Gehlot, who is in Assam campaigning for the assembly polls, told PTI over phone.

    He was reacting to a letter written by Banerjee to non-BJP leaders, including Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, wherein she alleged that the Centre-state relations were at its worst since independence.

    As she faces a high-stakes poll battle in West Bengal, Banerjee said the time has come for a “united and effective” struggle against the BJP’s alleged attacks on democracy and the Constitution, and that opposition leaders should try present a “credible alternative” to the people of the country.

    Gehlot asserted that he has raised the same concerns inside and outside the assembly.

    “Democracy in the country is under threat and people should understand its gravity,” he said.

    The senior Congress leader said the Central Bureau of Investigation, Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax department and other agencies are working under pressure from the central government, adding that those who express disagreement are labelled ‘anti-nationals’.

  • Rajasthan official burns Rs 20 lakh as ACB team knocks door for raid, arrested

    Express News Service
    JAIPUR: In a novel bid to escape the Anti-Corruption Bureau, a revenue official in Rajasthan’s Sirohi district allegedly burnt currency notes worth around Rs 20 lakh on Wednesday night. 

    The official burnt the notes that were lying at his residence soon after the ACB sleuths reached there.

    Tehsildar Kalpesh Kumar Jain, an official of the state Revenue Department, hurriedly locked himself inside his house and burnt the currency notes when the ACB officials arrived at his home. A little earlier, the ACB team had arrested revenue inspector Parvat Singh who was taking a bribe of Rs 1 lakh from a man allegedly on behalf of Tehsildar Jain for awarding him a contract. 

    The video of the incident, shared by ACB officials on social media, has gone viral where the Tehsildar can be seen burning Rs 500 rupee notes in his kitchen along with his wife. In the video, ACB officials are also seen trying to convince Jain to open the door for them. The bizarre incident lasted nearly 45 minutes. Ultimately, ACB officials had to break the kitchen door to force their way in and arrest the Tehsildar. 

    According to ACB DIG Vishnukant, the official had allegedly demanded a bribe of Rs 5 lakh for a government contract. He had demanded the same through his revenue inspector Parvat Singh who worked as his agent and was caught taking a bribe of Rs 1 lakh from a man on behalf of the Tehsildar. 

    The ACB team, somehow, managed to find the burnt notes in the kitchen and even recovered about 1.5 lakh rupees in cash. Both Jain and Singh have been arrested. 

    Interestingly, a senior Congress MLA Bharat Singh has shot off a letter to CM Ashok Gehlot and demanded that Jain should be given compulsory retirement for his shocking behaviour and corrupt deals. MLA Singh claimed that Tehsildar’s crime should be regarded as a rarest of rare case and he should be given exemplary punishment. 

  • Mentally unstable woman gang-raped in Udaipur

    By PTI
    UDAIPUR: A 23-year-old mentally-challenged woman was allegedly raped by three unidentified persons in Rajasthan’s Udaipur district, police said on Wednesday.

    An FIR was lodged at the police station in Gogunda, 35 km from Udaipur city, on the basis of a complaint by the woman’s family on Tuesday evening, police said.

    The three persons, who came on a motorcycle, abducted the woman, took her to an isolated area and raped her on Sunday evening, according to police.

    The woman’s medical examination was conducted, and efforts are on to identify and nab the culprits, they added.

  • Rajasthan minister rejects phone tapping claims, says CM will resign if allegations proven right

    By PTI
    JAIPUR: The Rajasthan government informed the state assembly on Wednesday that it did not tap phones of any legislator during last year’s political crisis.

    Rejecting the BJP’s allegations on phone tapping, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Shanti Dhariwal said the saffron party was making an issue in order to protect Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.

    He said the chief minister would offer his resignation if these allegations were proved right.

    “Not only the chief minister, all of us will resign,” Dhariwal added.

    However, the BJP demanded a CBI inquiry into the matter and created a ruckus in the assembly which led to adjournment of the House twice.

    The controversy around phone tapping erupted in July last year during the political crisis that was caused due to the rebellion of former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot and 18 other Congress MLAs against Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s leadership.

    On the basis of three audio clips in which Shekhawat and Congress leaders could be heard talking about a conspiracy to topple Gehlot’s government, Chief Whip Mahesh Joshi had registered FIRs with the Special Operations Group (SOG) and the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB).

    Dhariwal said after the FIRs were registered, SOG officers had gone to the residence and office of the minister in Delhi to collect Shekhawat’s voice sample but failed to get the same.

    He said BJP leaders should tell Shekhawat that their party was facing embarrassment because of him and hence, he should take the voice test.

    On the allegations by the BJP that the voice clips were prepared and circulated by Lokesh Sharma, the OSD to the chief minister, Dhariwal said the audio clips were received on WhatsApp.

    He stressed that forwarding an audio clip on WhatsApp was not a crime.

    Dhariwal apprised the House that the SOG last year intercepted phones of two persons — Ashok Singh and Bharat Malani — with permission from the Home Department, after receiving information about illegal arms smuggling and movement of explosives.

    He said none of them was a politician but during the interception, conspiracy to depose the Gehlot government was exposed and that the SOG inspector lodged an FIR in the matter.

    The minister said the government did not order any MLA’s, MP’s or an elected representative’s phone-tapping.

    Dhariwal reminisced that during the 90s, when efforts were being made to topple Bhairon Singh Shekhawat-led BJP government in the state, it was Gehlot, who met then prime minister PV Narasimha Rao and then Rajasthan governor Baliram Bhagat to speak against it.

    Dhariwal concluded his reply by taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which invited a sharp reaction from the BJP members who stormed to the well of the House and created a ruckus in the assembly.

    Speaker CP Joshi concluded the debate and adjourned the House for half an hour.

    The House was adjourned for the second time for another 30 minutes.

    Prior to the minister’s reply, Leader of Opposition Gulab Chand Kataria asked if the phones were not tapped, then why was the FIR lodged.

    He said if the cases lodged were true, then the government should take action against the accused.

    When the House reassembled, the speaker said it was everyone’s responsibility to respect the president, vice president, prime minister, chief minister and other leaders in a parliamentary democracy.

    Saying that no such comment which may weaken the parliamentary democracy should be made, the speaker directed to expunge the comments of Dhariwal against the prime minister.

    Earlier in the day, the suspension of BJP MLA Madan Dilawar was revoked after the leader of opposition tendered an apology for his conduct.

    Dilawar was suspended for seven days for his “unruly behaviour” in the House on Tuesday.

  • Rajasthan: Woman admitted in hospital ICU sexually assaulted, male nursing staff held

    By PTI
    JAIPUR: A woman admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) of a private hospital in Jaipur has been allegedly sexually assaulted by a male nursing staff, police said on Wednesday.

    The accused was arrested on rape charges on Tuesday evening on the complaint of the victim’s husband, they said.

    “The woman was admitted to the ICU where the accused committed the crime on Monday night. The victim was in a semi-conscious state and she resisted as much she could,” DCP West Pradeep Mohan Sharma said.

    Next morning, when her husband met her, she informed him about the incident by writing on a paper following which he lodged a complaint with the police.

  • Rajasthan ACP, who sought sexual favours from rape survivor, summarily dismissed

    Express News Service
    JAIPUR: The Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), who sought sexual favours as bribe from a rape survivor in Jaipur, has summarily been sacked by the Gehlot Government on Tuesday. 

    The ACP Kailash Bohra was caught red-handed by the sleuths of the anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Sunday when he made sexual advances on the young rape survivor in his office premises. 

    The ACB used a novel method to catch the culprit. The ACB team used the same chemical and method in this extraordinary case that is normally used for trapping corrupt officials who demand money in cash currency.  ACB officials claim it’s the first time that such a methodology has been used in a case of such a serious and sensitive nature.

    The DG of ACB, B L Soni said that “the rape survivor had filed a complaint about a week ago. After initially asking for money, ACP Bohra later asked her to provide sexual favours as a bribe from the rape survivor.”

    ASP (Jaipur Rural) Narottam Verma, who headed the operation, said, “It was a very sensitive situation. In normal corruption cases, we can trap people with chemicals on the notes. But in this case, there could be no such recoveries. However, we did need to have concrete evidence since that is what is demanded and matters in court cases.”   

    On Sunday, when Bohra called the woman to his office, she and the ACB team expected that he would try to make advances. So to catch the officer red-handed, the ACB team sprinkled some Phenolphthalein powder on her clothes. This is the same white-coloured powder which is spread on currency notes that are likely to come in contact with the hands of officials who demand money as bribes. As this chemical is invisible, when any official receives or touches the money, that chemical sticks to his hands and when those hands are dipped in sodium carbonate, the water changes its colour from white to pink.

    When ACP Bohra started making advances on the woman and touched her on Sunday, his hands caught the invisible powder – and that has now created solid evidence about his behaviour. As ASP Narottam Verma confirms, “Our team raided Bohra and arrested him in a compromising situation, just before he could begin a physical contact with the complainant.”  

  • BJP targets Congress over crimes against women in Rajasthan

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: The BJP on Tuesday cited a number of recent cases of rapes in Rajasthan to hit out at the Congress leadership, and alleged the state government is busy saving itself instead of serving people.

    BJP spokesperson Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, an MP from Rajasthan, also reiterated his party’s demand for state Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s resignation over the phone-tapping done by police during the rebellion in the Congress ranks last year and called for a CBI probe into the matter.

    Addressing a press conference, Rathore noted that Rajasthan tops the chart in nationwide crimes against women and said it had registered 6,000 cases in 2019 out of 32,000 across the country as per the NCRB data.

    Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, however, cannot see these crimes and have not uttered a word, he said.

    “For a party whose top two leaders are women, this is only possible if the political leadership forgets its prime objective of working for people,” he said, hitting out at the Sonia Gandhi-led party.

    Mocking Rahul Gandhi, he said there should be a “Rahul Gandhi eye test” and those failing it should be seen incapable of sighting these reports, he said, showing the media reportage of the incidents of rape in Rajasthan.

    Attacking the Gehlot government over the phone-tapping, Rathore said the Congress keeps accusing the Modi government of misusing state agencies but it is in Rajasthan where laws were misused to tap telephones of the common man.

    It was not done for national security purposes or to check some economic crime but for political reasons, he alleged, seeking a CBI probe.

    In the session called on August 14 by the Gehlot government for a floor test after the rebellion by Sachin Pilot and 18 other Congress MLAs, BJP MLA Kalicharan had asked, “Is it true that phone tapping cases have come up in the last days? If yes, under which law and by whose orders?” In its reply given recently, the Home Department stated that telephones are intercepted in the interest of public safety and order.

    “The telephones are intercepted under the provision of Section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, and Section 419 (A) of the Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Rules, 2007, and Section 69 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 – after approval by a competent officer,” according to the reply.

    The department further stated, “Interception cases are reviewed by the chief secretary. All cases up to the month of November 2020 have been reviewed.”Neither the MLA asked details about any particular person whose phone was tapped nor did the government gave any specific information about it.

    However, the BJP has attacked the government over the issue and demanded Gehlot’s resignation, accusing him of misleading the public.

    Congress has said it did not tap phone of any MLA or MP.

  • Inadequate supply or a scam? Congress, BJP in war of words over vaccine ‘shortage’ in Rajasthan

    Express News Service
    JAIPUR: The row between the Ashok Gehlot government and the Centre over the alleged shortage of Covid vaccines for the state has escalated into a verbal war between the ruling Congress and the opposition BJP in Rajasthan. 

    Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot supported Health Minister Raghu Sharma’s claim that the ‘inadequate’ supply of Covid vaccine led to the suspension of the first round of doses at primary and community health centres since Tuesday. The BJP hit back saying that a ‘vaccine scam’ may have erupted in Rajasthan.

    Gehlot took to Twitter to argue that the centre gave “completely incorrect” data. “The Health Ministry claimed that Rajasthan received 37.61 lakh vaccines and till yesterday 24.28 lakh vaccines have been administered. This data is completely incorrect. As of March 8, Rajasthan received 31,45,340 vaccines. Of these, 2,15,180 vaccines have been made available to the Army,” Gehlot tweeted in Hindi on Tuesday.

    Gehlot’s statement drew a sharp response from the BJP. The party’s chief spokesperson and MLA Ramlal Sharma said, “Gehlot’s claims of vaccine shortage are bogus. The Central government says Rajasthan has received 37.61 lakh vaccines but the state is only giving an account of 24.28 lakh doses. Wonder where have the rest of the doses disappeared? Hope, this government which is steeped in scams has not created a new scam around the vaccines.”

    In his series of tweets on Tuesday night, Gehlot asserted that Central government officials should be told not to give “false” information about Rajasthan on Covid vaccines. The Chief Minister had also claimed that the ‘delay’ in sending vaccines and ‘misinformation’ on the drive will ‘hurt people’s spirits and disappoint the corona warriors in the state.

    Suresh Singh Rawat, another BJP MLA, attacked also Gehlot’s claims and said the charges of the state government are ‘totally baseless.’ Claiming that he had spoken to the central government on the issue, the BJP leader said: “The Rajasthan government did not send its demands on time. If the state government asks the Centre for more doses, the Centre will oblige as it is giving priority to Rajasthan in the matter of vaccination drive.”

    The Deputy Leader of the Opposition Rajendra Singh Rathore made sharp comments in the Assembly on this issue. “Our CM is prone to do politics on every issue. But I request him not to play politics on a pandemic that has gripped the whole world. Instead of attacking the Centre for the shortage of vaccines, it might have been better had the Chief Minister checked with his Health department on the disappearance of more than 1.6 lakh doses.”