Other States - Rajasthan   

‘New Ministers made sacrificial goats’

JAIPUR: Congress general secretary Ashok Gehlot strongly feels that the Gujarat results will not in any manner improve the prospects of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Rajasthan in the elections next year. “The situation in Rajasthan is entirely different from Gujarat. Here the people are waiting for the first opportunity to throw out this corrupt and insensitive Government,” he said in a statement here.

Reacting to the changes in the Cabinet made by Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje earlier this week, Mr. Gehlot said no amount of changes in the Council of Ministers would alter the fortunes of the “sinking” Government in Rajasthan.

“The downfall is certain as these cosmetic changes are not going to provide any relief to the suffering people of the State,” he said. “Instead, the newly inducted Ministers individually face the prospect of losing the next election,” he warned.

“There are only ten months left for the elections and these new Ministers have been made sacrificial goats. As it has been happening in the State in the past, the Ministers inducted towards the end of the tenure of the Government stand the chance of losing the next election,” Mr.Gehlot noted.

“Under the given circumstances one cannot expect these Ministers to work in the interest of the State,” he said.

“The Cabinet reshuffle was just an unsuccessful effort on the part of Ms. Raje to show that she was in control while the people at large know that the exercise was not meant to provide any relief to the people,” Mr. Gehlot said. This was more so as in the reshuffle the Chief Minister distributed departments known for their corruption to her favourite Ministers, he charged. “In the next 10 months the State will be totally in the hands of brokers,” he added.

The former Chief Minister, who accused Ms. Raje of providing respectability to corruption, said the morale of the criminals was so high that the common man felt increasingly insecure under the present rule. “Atrocities against women have become a routine affair in the State. Rajasthan also holds an all-time record in police firing at farmers. No other State in the country will have such a record since Independence,” he said. Mr. Gehlot also accused the State Government of making Gujjar and Meenas, the communities that have been living in harmony so far, to fight each other after making false election promises.

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