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Charges baseless: Minister

JAIPUR: One of the dissident ministers in the Rajasthan Cabinet, Madan Dilwar, on Wednesday alleged a vilification campaign against him by “certain vested interests”. Without naming anyone, he said those who were behind the act should show the courage to come out in the open. “They themselves are corrupt and have no character,” he said.

Mr. Dilwar, who holds the portfolio of Social Welfare, is among the three ministers against whom cases have been registered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act for allegedly consuming opium at a get-together organised by senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh in his ancestral village Jassol on October 31. He had also boycotted the State Committee meeting attended by L. K. Advani at Sanwaliaji in Chittorgarh last month.

Mr. Dilwar, who was deprived of his Cooperative portfolio some time back by Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, said what the gathering had consumed at Mr. Jaswant Singh’s place was “scented water” and not opium. “I can smell opium if it is there as I grew up playing in opium fields as a child,” said the Minister, against whom a spiral notebook titled “Haat bazaar ke dhari dookandaar se bana arabpati rajneta” (From wayside market vendor to millionaire politician).

“My father used to grow opium,” he claimed talking to journalists. In fact, Mr. Dilwar had organized the interaction with the media persons not to comment on the opium episode but to react to the charges against him in the document, which was delivered this week to journalists through courier. The document carries details of the property and wealth he allegedly amassed after joining politics.

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