Congress leaders hit out at those levelling corruption allegations against Gehlot govt

PTI, May 16, 2023, 12:19 PM IST

Rajasthan minister Mahesh Joshi on Tuesday slammed Congress leaders who have mounted an attack on the Gehlot government, saying it was surprising and disappointing that some responsible people were making allegations of corruption against the government.

Congress MLA from Didwana, Chetan Dudi also hit out at those lashing out against the government.

The two leaders came out in defence of the Ashok Gehlot government a day after Pilot and Sainik Kalyan Minister Rajendra Gudha levelled fresh corruption allegations.

Without naming Gudha over remarks that the Rajasthan government was going beyond “40 percent commission of Karnataka government”, Joshi said, “Such leaders should have thought before accusing their own government that they in a way levelling these allegations on themselves too”.

Gudha made the allegations during Pilot’s rally in Jaipur on Monday.

In a statement on Monday night, Joshi said those who have made allegations know it well that whenever the matter of corruption has come, the chief minister has taken strong action by following the policy of zero tolerance and the Anti Corruption Bureau’s actions against the corrupt are indicative of this.

Dudi, who was earlier considered close to dissident Congress leader Sachin Pilot but stood with the government during the political crisis in 2020, said the three demands raised by Pilot were impractical and completely incomprehensible.

On the issue of corruption by the former Vasundhara Raje government, Dudi said all those cases have been settled by the High Court and the Supreme Court and the mining leases have already been cancelled. Apart from a call for a high-level probe into corruption, Pilot on Monday spelled out two other demands – disbanding the Rajasthan Public Service Commission (RPSC) and its reconstitution, and compensation for those affected by the cancellation of government recruitment exams after the paper leak.

“Don’t you know that RPSC is an independent constitutional body which can never be dissolved? Even the resignation of the RPSC member is accepted by the president. Why are you confusing the youth?” Dudi tweeted on Monday night. The MLA claimed the demand for compensation on paper leak is only for getting false praise because this does not happen in any state. “Till date no leader in history has made such a demand. Strict actions that have been taken on paper leak in Rajasthan have not been taken in any other state. Youths know this fact very well,” he said.

Dudi said in Rajasthan, more than 150 people have been jailed for paper leak, special law and STF have been made on paper leak.

In a series of tweets, Dudi asked Pilot which cases of the Vasundhara government are still pending that he wants to get investigated.

“Because as soon as the government came to power, these cases have been settled by the High Court and the Supreme Court and all the mines have also been cancelled,” he said. Pilot has been raising the issue of alleged corruption of the former government led by Raje, that included the mines scam. Dudi also took a dig at Pilot over union minister Gajendra Singh’s tweet after his rally in which he shared a photo and video clipping of Pilot’s rally, and said, “A large group of Congress workers and leaders in Rajasthan, ‘through whose hard work the government came’, today itself is calling its government corrupt.” The Congress MLA wrote, “Rajasthan’s biggest scam is Sanjeevani scam in which lakhs of people’s houses were looted, but in the rally, the name of the main accused of Sanjeevani scam was not even taken and after the rally, the main accused tweeted in praise of Pilot. This is the truth of the rally because friendship has been there since the time of Manesar.” Pilot and his supporting MLAs, who had revolted against the Gehlot government in July 2020, had stayed in hotels in Manesar town near Gurgaon. Former deputy CM and Tonk MLA Pilot held a rally in Jaipur on Monday on the culmination of his Ajmer-Jaipur ‘Jan Sangharsh Pad Yatra’ on the issue of corruption and paper leak.

The rally was attended by at least 14 Congress MLAs, as many former MLAs and several other leaders of the party and a large number of his supporters in which he announced to agitate against the government if THE three demands raised by him were not fulfilled by this month end.