The Hindu : Shekhawat's meetings raise a lot of dust

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Oct 19, 2003

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Other States - Rajasthan

Shekhawat's meetings raise a lot of dust

By Our Special Correspondent

JAIPUR OCT. 18. The shadow -- or is it what they call "chhatra chhaya'' -- of Bhairon Singh Shekhawat continues to hover over Rajasthan politics even after his becoming the Vice-President of the country, according to political observers here.

In a State where once even good rains were attributed to the "grace'' of Mr. Shekhawat, his absence now too is his presence in the coming elections here going by the latest controversy over his taking "undue'' interest in State politics and BJP affairs.

The talk was in the air for quite some time but no one thought it prudent to make it public till the other day when the leader of the newly-floated political party, Rajasthan Samajik Nyay Manch, Devi Singh Bhati, threatened to approach the President of India and the Election Commission in protest against the "indulgence'' of the Vice-President in politics.

The immediate provocation for Mr.Bhati, a former BJP minister now out of the party, to target Mr.Shekhawat was the latter's recent visit to Jodhpur where he met hordes of BJP men seeking party ticket for the coming elections.

If reports appearing in the local media are true, Mr.Shekhawat met each of them in Jodhpur, the home city of the Chief Minister, Ashok Gehlot, and even discussed the "sameekaran''(equation) which would substantiate their claim of winning chances.

Mr.Gehlot rather played safe when asked about the controversy over Mr.Shekhawat's political forays to say that the nation expected certain level of grace and dignity from those who held posts of the President and the Vice-President. However, the Congress party did not seem to be that lenient.

In a statement here the spokesman of the PCC (I) Raghu Sharma said that this was for the first time in the past 55 years that such a controversy had arisen in the case of a Vice-President of the country. "If the newspaper reports about the Vice-President's meeting ticket aspirants from a particular political party are correct, then it is most unfortunate,'' Dr. Sharma noted.

Congress circles here always used to grumble about the frequent visits made by Mr.Shekhawat to his home State but had desisted from making any comments. However, this time the party brought in this aspect too in a statement here today. "Prior to him no Vice-President of the country would have had made so many visits to his home State,'' it said.

The BJP did not officially react to the allegations made by Mr.Bhati the other day but when asked by mediapersons at a party function the senior leader, Lalit Kishore Chaturvedi chose to defend Mr.Shekhawat's action. "Lot of people want to meet Mr.Shekhawat. He has been in politics here for such a long time. If people hand over their bio-data to him, what is unusual about it'' he asked.

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