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Vasundhara dares party rivals to fight her

JAIPUR: Internal squabbles in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Rajasthan have taken a turn for the worse now with Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje challenging her rivals to come out into the open to face her, and her detractors promptly accepting the challenge.

The visit of the old warhorse Jaswant Singh, leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, to Jaipur this past weekend seemingly helped boost the morale of those opposed to Ms. Raje.

Ms. Raje, in a combative mood last week as her opponents within the State and outside were seemingly closing in on her from all four corners, dared all to face her—“a woman wearing bangles but not a coward”—and then watch the fun. In fact, in her brief speech at her residence on the occasion of admitting former Janata Dal (United) leader Gopal Pacherwal to the BJP, Ms. Raje had not named anyone and it could have been even assumed that her target was the main Opposition in the State, the Congress.

Ms. Raje’s rivals were quick to take upon themselves the challenge as they assumed that the very decision to admit Mr. Pacherwal to the party was to “set right” Kailash Meghwal, senior Dalit leader and critic of the Chief Minister. Only a fortnight ago Mr. Meghwal, national vice-president of the BJP, had reportedly complained at a party meeting presided over by BJP president Rajnath Singh in Delhi, about Ms. Raje “amassing enormous wealth”.

None of the senior leaders was present at the time of Mr. Pacherwal’s joining the party in Jaipur and some of them openly challenged Ms. Raje’s decision to admit him. One of the dissidents, Mahavir Prasad Jain, chief whip of the ruling party in the State Assembly, on Sunday described Mr. Pacherwal as a “rejected” leader tainted in the Tehelka.com scandal. Mr. Pacherwal has represented the Tonk (Scheduled Caste) constituency in the Lok Sabha in the past and Mr. Jain too belongs to the area. At present Mr. Meghwal is the Member of Parliament from Tonk.

If anyone thought Ms. Raje’s dialogue daring any “mai kaa laal” to come forward and face the “one wearing bangles” was a stray soliloquy, he was mistaken. On Saturday, in her one-time Assembly constituency Dholpur, Ms. Raje again was in her element challenging all “daring sons” to come forward and fight her. She said the strength from the “moonchh” (moustache) of the public and “meri churiyaan” (my bangles) would not allow anyone to stop Rajasthan in the tracks of development.

Mr. Jaswant Singh’s was apparently not a political visit. He had come in connection with the release of a book authored by a former CBI director now settled in Jaipur, but the opponents of Ms. Raje made him a rallying point. They called on Mr. Singh collectively at the State hotel Khasa Kothi. The leaders included former State BJP president Lalit Kishore Chatruvedi, Ministers Ghanshyam Tiwari and Madan Dilwar, Mr. Jain and Onkar Singh Lakhawat. Whether Mr. Jaswant Singh wanted it or not, the next day the local papers portrayed him as the “mai kaa laal” who had finally arrived to take up Ms. Raje’s challenge.

Surely Mr. Jaswant Singh, evasive when it comes to issues pertaining to Rajasthan, knew what he was doing. He talked about “old forts” still holding forth enough energy to carry on and also of persons “getting headstrong” with power. His previous visit to the State capital was at the invitation of Mr. Tiwari for the launch of the controversial project envisaged to “re-write” the history of Rajasthan, starting from village level. It is also being pointed out that Mr. Jaswant Singh’s wife some time ago had filed an FIR with the police in Jodhpur complaining against a poster depicting Ms. Raje as a goddess.

According to political observers here, Ms. Raje and her detractors are surely on a collision course and a showdown could be expected any time before the start of the monsoon session of the State Assembly, scheduled for the third week of this month.

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