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Women groups say charges against Shekhawat more serious

Special Correspondent

JAIPUR: Several women’s groups and activist organisations here have termed Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, the National Democratic Alliance-supported independent Presidential candidate, “anti-women, anti-Dalit, anti-minorities” and one who sided with the British empire during the freedom struggle and perpetrated human rights violations as Chief Minister of Rajasthan.

Allegations of misuse of public office against him were far more serious and complex compared to those levelled by his party men against his rival, the United Progressive Alliance-Left supported candidate, Pratibha Patil, they said.

In a joint statement, more than a dozen and a half organisations and individuals, led by People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Rajasthan, Samagra Seva Sangh, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Academy for Socio Legal Studies and National Muslim Women’s Welfare Society, said they could not forget the negative impact his three regimes in Rajasthan over the years had on the lives of the poor, oppressed, minorities and women in the State.

The signatories to the statement include former chairperson of the Rajasthan Women’s Commission, Pawan Surana, former Member of Parliament Than Singh, human rights lawyer Prem Krishna Sharma, Ladkumari Jain, former president of Rajasthan University Women’s Association, Sarvodaya leader Sawai Singh, educationist Engineer Mohammed Saleem and Ved Vyas, writer.

Mr. Shekhawat had organised the maximum number of bricks for “shilanyas” between 1990 and 1992 as Chief Minister, they charged, adding that the communal strife witnessed by the State during this period claimed more than 19 lives in Kota region alone. During his tenure as Chief Minister between 1993 and 1998, he facilitated “rath yatras” which led to violence resulting in 56 deaths here in the capital, they alleged. And in recent times, Mr. Shekhawat even spoke of creating a “Gujarat in Rajasthan”, they added. It was only “natural” for Mr. Shekhawat to oppose a woman in the Presidential elections too as throughout his public life he had remained anti-women, said Kavita Srivastava, general secretary of PUCL, Rajasthan, adding that he had protected those who glorified Deorala sati and even accommodated one of them in his Cabinet.

The women’s groups cited several examples. Some of the most notorious rape incidents such as that of Saathin Bhanwari Devi, the one at the J.C.Bose hostel on the Rajasthan University campus and the Bheenmal Jain Muni episode took place during his tenure, they said, adding that in the Bheenmal case Mr. Shekhawat even ordered suspension of the Superintendent of Police, Jalore, who permitted the arrest of the accused.The groups said the Kumher massacre, in which as many as 36 Dalits—official figure, 17—were done to death by members of the Jat community in Bharatpur district in June 1992, spoke volumes for Mr. Shekhawat’s anti-Dalit track record. None was so far punished in the incident and, ironically, more cases were filed against Dalits in this connection than the perpetrators of atrocities.

Mr. Shekhawat’s “aversion” to transparency was all visible in his refusal to grant the right to information, they said: even after a series of agitations by the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan for the Right to Information, Mr. Shekhawat’s Government had refused enactment of a law.

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